As I am becoming more comfortable with my technology skills, I am becoming braver about introducing it to my students. This has really begun to pay off. I have been using the iPod touch in a number of different ways, both in the class and also in my schooling. One very useful thing I have recently begun playing around with is the voice recorded and text transcriber. While I live in Seattle and am teaching in Everett, I am finding myself in the car a lot. Being able to record my immediate thoughts after class has really helped in assessing the students and planning appropriately. Being able to transcribe my recording to text makes it really easy to go back to and reread; to check for particular patterns or to remind myself what worked well and what didn't in my lessons and interaction with my students.
As far as having the iPod touch available to students, I have realized this can be a bit problematic at times. While it is obvious that it is a great resource for the students, I am conflicted by the fact that I only have one to share, leaving very little time per student and/or an unequal opportunity for my students. One situation that I found particularly difficult was during a math lesson. I was teaching about long division and realized quickly that a few of my students were not understanding my lesson at all due to their unfamiliarity with their multiplication facts. I decided that I was going to allow one of my students to work on his multiplication facts on the iPod, on an app called ArithmeTick. This was great for this one student, however there we a few other students who were equally low in their math development. To make this fair I decided to have each of the students use the iPod touch for 10 minutes and then allow someone else to use it. The logistics of this worked out okay but I am not confident that all three of these students were successful in effectively using the app. It seemed like right when the students got comfortable with how the app worked they had to give it up.
This leads me to my question for the week. How does a teacher go about acquiring technology tools when the school does not have the resources to fund them? I know there are grants available, but are there other ways in which a teacher can propose to get tools like iPod touches? It is such a shame that there are so many great gadgets out there that can help with teacher instruction and student understanding and many schools/teachers do not have access to them.
Glad that you're experimenting, and yes, when teachers do use hand-helds, they rarely have access to only one...
ReplyDeleteFinding money for tech partly is done by teachers advocating for spending that way instead of on some other things... Partly teachers find grants. Partly, teachers who do have some discretionary spending money decide how to use it... and tech is probably a better use in most cases than classroom decorations or some other thing that is less about student learning :)
I just read about a school in which kids had access to Touches for those times like the three minutes they have to wait to go to lunch, or the 5 minutes between finishing something and waiting for others to finish ... and just the practice work that they did then meant that achievement went up... ten minutes can be enough, once kids do know their way around.
Keep playing and experimenting, and you can decide then whether to be an advocate for budgeting for such things.
And very cool that you're recording your own notes-- excellent use of this thing!
Hi Taryn,
ReplyDeleteI know that in the school district I have been working they have a budget for computers on a per student ration for each school. I'm aware of one school were they are debating between investing in PCs, MacBooks, or IPads. An IPod touch would not be applicable because it doesn't offer the same functionality, but the choices they are considering do fulfill the requirements to be funded for this purpose.
Just a thought.