Mobile Learning Devices

After reading the article Why iPads? It’s a Question of Innovation by Tom Daccord (http://www.eschoolnews.com/2013/04/24/why-ipads-its-a-question-of-innovation/), I was not surprised to read that by the end of 2012, Apple reported to have sold more than 4.5 million iPads to educational institutions.  Why so popular?  The iPad has a reputation of creating innovative young minds.  This article emphasized how just the tool alone would not create innovative thinkers.  Schools need to agree on their vision, objectives, and develop an assessment that would measure progress towards student’s creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

Just this year we were given two student iPads to use in our rooms.  This limits our students to only working in groups or with a partner during reading or math stations.  Although there is significance in students using the iPad to collaborate in groups, I would like to use it in my math lessons as an individual tool.  The Show Me app or Voice Thread app is a great tool to capture a student’s way of thinking on solving a math equation.  The Show Me app was originally created to support teachers, creating a lesson and sharing whiteboard style lessons with the recording of a voice on the iPad.  I can also see how valuable and beneficial this app would be in allowing students to develop and share short lessons with each other.  This allows the teacher to get a glimpse of the student’s thinking and understanding of the skill. 

Another mobile device I could see beneficial if used the correct way is the Clickers, or also known as the Classroom Response System.  Our school has one classroom set of clickers that can be checked out to use.  I personally have not used this tool but do plan to give them a try. After reading the article from the osu.edu website, I have a better understanding of how this tool could be used in my classroom.  I can see my first graders using this tool to ask questions such as opinions on their favorite kind of pizza or ice-cream and then collecting the data for graphing.  I could also see the importance of using the clickers to collect information on math pre-tests.  One of our first grade standards is students being able to recognize if a math equation is true or false.  This tool could be used to determine if students understand this concept.  The article stated the various questioning styles that could be utilized when using clickers.  Some questioning styles mentioned were knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation type questions (http://ocio.osu.edu/elearning/toolbox/depth/clickers/).   I like the idea of using this mobile device because all students are engaged in learning.  Students are also less likely to be hesitant when answering questions because their click is an anonymous response.

Another mobile device I was really intrigued by was the SmartPen.  I had never heard of such a tool before and really could see how this tool would have been beneficial to me in middle school or high school.  I seemed to struggle when trying to keep notes.  Just about the time I would begin to write something of importance down on my paper, I would forget the ending to what was said and have a portion of my notes left with question marks.  This SmartPen is used to record a teacher’s voice by capturing words, audio, scribbles and syncs everything written to what is said (http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/solutions/k12/ ).  After taking notes on the what is known as the Livescribe paper, the student can tap anywhere on their notes to playback what was said at that exact moment in time.  This tool also allows the student to slow down or speed up the audio, control volume, or even bookmark key information.  The SmartPen is not real expensive averaging around $120.  I’m not sure this is a tool I would find useful in my first grade classroom but I can definitely see how it would positively impact the note taking of a middle or high school student.