iPods in the classroom
Ipods and Ipad in Room 12
Last term I was lucky enough to get 5 iPods to trial in the classroom as tools for learning. This has been an amazing experience and the children have loved every minute of it!
Key Points:
- I plugged my iPad into the Interactive Whiteboard to demonstrate each app as it was introduced, meaning that the children were familiar with the look and purpose of the app before they played it.
- I trialled apps first on my own iPad and then transferred them to the five classroom iPods.
- We have integrated the iPods into numeracy, literacy and topic in the following ways...
Numeracy - my students work on the 'fun five' independently while I take my numeracy groups. After the students became familiar with the iPods, I began including them as one of the fun five activities. The purchase of a timer helped the students self-monitor their time on the iPods and when it was time to share. A selection of Basic Facts / Number apps were downloaded and are very popular with the students. They are motivated and engaged, and don't even realise they are learning at the same time.
Topic - During our Healthy Eating / Recipes unit, I downloaded several apps to help us create some presentations, as well as independent apps the students could use when they had finished their activity. One example was an app that had the students follow a recipe to bake cookies - one that reinforced the learning we were doing when following and writing recipes through this topic.
Literacy - the iPods have been used successfully for inspiring writing - some of the silly apps that change peoples faces etc have been very motivational, as have the augmented reality apps.
I am constantly finding new apps and simply do not have enough time in the day to use them all! The iPods are being used very regularly through the Junior Syndicate to support curriculum areas and are also being used in conjunction with the laptops. I can forsee a need for a new set of iPods in the near future!
