This research actually made me a bit upset with my old middle-school and high school teachers. I see the amazing things teachers are doing in classrooms now and I just wish that my old teachers had figured it out when I could've benefited from it more. I talk to my sister (who is now in 8th grade) and she is using a chrome book as her textbooks, and as a tool to write papers and create projects for school. These awesome resources also made me think of a video that has been going around regarding the school systems ability to change.
pushing for more technology in the classrooms and encouraging students to go outside of the standards and pushes their students to use technology actively. There are teachers that are using Augmented Reality and getting support from Technology Integrationists in order to improve their students learning in the classroom. I aspire to be like these teachers, for now I will just learn from them.
This trend of mobile devices in the classroom affects my study of elementary education because it gives me many opportunities to differentiate learning in a classroom. It also give many examples of how younger students can use technology to safely and inventively create connections to new information and work collaboratively.
12 Comments
Emily Ropp
11/8/2016 11:03:01 pm
Sarah,
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Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 09:40:44 pm
I read your blog post and I thought it was interesting that there were people who thought IWBs were beginning to be outdated. I would hope that there are just more ways that we could use them, that have yet to be explored. I do not have much experience with IWB (although I would like to) but I can see the benefit for using them in the classroom. I could've used one with the math lesson I gave the other day, because I was using our actual white board in a way that would've made more sense and been easier to understand with an IWB. I like the idea of using both IWBs and IPads/Chromebooks in a classroom, but that may be asking too much of the school system. Given a choice I would choose IPads/Chromebooks. They are more portable, and allows the students to work one on one, pairs, small groups, or as a whole class. I also have more experience with using them and am familiar with a variety of useful learning apps that are available.
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Tyler Deming
11/9/2016 12:52:46 pm
I agree with your post about the use of mobile devices in our classrooms to benefit both teachers and students. I am currently placed in a First Grade classroom where we have four iPads we share as a class. However, we rarely use them, with the exception of when doing learning centers. During learning centers, students get to take the iPad into the hallway where they can read different stories. This is beneficial for struggling students and ELL students because the app we use (Get Epic) also has a setting to read the story to the child. Although we use iPads for this part of our schooling, I do think in order for both teachers and students to benefit, the technology needs to be used to its potential; not just as an extra guide.
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Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 08:39:08 pm
Definitely! We use IPads in my placement all the time (Kindergarten) and it has truly inspired me with this post. We use a variety of apps over a variety of subjects (To Do Math, Starfall, Compass Learning, ABC Genius, Razzkids, to name a few). We use these mostly during our center time for different subjects. I would love to incorporate them more into learning new curriculum, but I think that, for kindergarten, the students need just a little more instruction than the IPads can offer. It is something I definitely want to pursue and do more research on.
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Tyler
11/10/2016 09:27:23 pm
Yes, I agree. One thing I have thought about, and I don't know how it would work... but what if we had a 1:1 iPad to student and got rid of having a "computer lab." With today's technology, an iPad can be set up to print to a printer, and teachers would waste all the transition time moving from the classroom, to the lab, and back to the classroom. Instead, all we would need to do is tell our students to grab their iPad, find a comfy spot in the room, and begin your work. Just a thought... not sure how that would work overall.
Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 10:20:04 pm
Tyler,
Amanda Fields
11/9/2016 10:27:27 pm
This was very interesting for me to read! I loved your discussion on your experiences in middle school and high school with mobile devices in the classroom (or lack there of) and I can relate to that completely. It seems to me as though you found some great information on how we as future educators can use mobile devices in the classroom. I am wondering what resources were available to our teachers on mobile devices when we were in school and why they did not use them. I think mobile devices can be used in some sort of way at all grade levels. My only concern is students becoming distracted or going on websites they are not supposed to be on. This definitely has to be teacher monitored greatly but overall a great idea. I love your explanation on collaboration!
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Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 08:50:19 pm
We use IPads in our classroom a lot and we ran into the problem of students going on apps that we had instructed them not to go on. We found a way to lock the IPads so they can't switch apps. In order to switch apps you have to input a pass-code (four digit numeral code). This requires some setup and you would have to lock and unlock them every time you wanted to switch to a new subject. We had some volunteers that were nice enough to come in and set it up for us. We have it set up in our room so that there are five IPads for each app that we are using that week and have the students rotate IPads when necessary.
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Jason
11/10/2016 06:21:20 am
Going back to our discussion/activity in class, think about the activities you've seen or participated in with mobile devices. While some of you mention benefits for struggling learners, are the 'strategies' being employed truly different, or are they simply doing the same thing on a new device?
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Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 10:13:59 pm
I think the benefit of using mobile devices in the classroom is that there are a variety of ways to differentiate the technology for struggling learners, whether they are ELL, Special Needs, or just well below grade level. It also allows the students to work together, or in small groups as the teacher sees fit, depending on the student, subject, and assistance required. Another great thing about IPads/Chromebooks there are ways to make the technology assertive to students who need different kinds of help with basic uses of technology (i.e. zoom, audio, highlighted readings, etc.). There are also many things you can do to differentiate instruction using IPads/Chromebooks, that you cannot do in a classroom without them. For example, when using IPads/Chromebooks there can be all different students working on math, science, reading, writing during the same class time. Perhaps it is class time for reading, there are apps for interactive books, books being read aloud, books being read aloud as the words are highlighted, among others. I would say that there are many ways to use mobile devices and while there are many ways to benefit struggling learners without technology, mobile devices would be a way to assist struggling learners in a variety of ways that are not necessarily being done now to the fullest potential.
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Aimee Dobry
11/10/2016 11:18:56 am
Sarah I have similar enthusiastic perspectives on technology in the classroom. As I know your placement and the 1:1 iPad ratio I was interested in your thoughts on the productiveness of the apps we use in Kindergarten. Do you feel that we should be using these for their video and picture taking abilities? What about going on a science nature hunt and having students take pictures through the technology resources available? I enjoy our use of the apps during center time, however I am interested to hear your thoughts on other ways we could use them. In relation to Tyler's comment on the lack of use of iPads, do you feel that we overuse iPads because we have 1:1 ratios?
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Sarah Castle
11/10/2016 09:26:29 pm
I would love to incorporate them into science. I think doing a nature walk would be wonderful! Especially with it being fall and things are changing to quickly. I was thinking about the different ways we could get the students outside and moving more before the weather changes for the worst, and incorporating the IPads into the scenario would be a great way to 1 avoid the possibility of losing writing utensils outside, and 2 introduce them to the abilities and uses of IPads. We could have them take pictures and zoom into analyze things more closely. We could have them record their own story to the story books they are reading in RazzKids.
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About the BlogThis blog was for my EDT 370 course at GVSU. Now I am using it to post and keep track of different ways to use technology in my classroom. Archives
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