Importing songs from my laptop onto my iPod touch

I recently unearthed my old iPod, and I wanted to put songs onto it. It's quite old, 3rd gen I believe. It hasn't been updated since May 2012, with the last iOS version being 5.1.1. I think. This is the only Apple product I've ever owned, so I'm not too familiar with navigating through them.

I connected my iPod to my laptop with a cable, and I thought I would simply be able to just upload the audio files onto it. But, alas, that didn't work. I know a lot of servers aren't really supported anymore, so this might just be a lost cause.

I don't know if anyone will see this, but if so, and you want more details, I can provide. I just wanted to see how far this would go.

Thank you :-)