Tonight's post is all about using iPads/iPods in the classroom. My position is funded through a grant that also put iPad and iPod labs in the schools for teacher and student use. Therefore I have been doing a tremendous amount of research on using these in the classroom. I spent some time in an 8th grade math class and we (the teacher and I) conducted small groups during the period. The iPods served as a great easy was to engage students in quality mathematics, without a ton of prep time from the teacher. Many of our teachers are planning to use the labs for this purpose. During our small group rotations, I taught the students a partner game, the teacher taught a lesson, and the third group played an app related to the topic of study. I was very pleased at how well the students at this age level were engaged in learning. While many of the elementary classrooms I visit conduct small groups on a daily basis, small groups was new to this middle school classroom. I look forward to more opportunities to experience this type of student engagement in the middle and high schools!
If you have access to iPads/iPods for student learning, the resources below are very valuable:
- Apps4Edu: This first site is a search engine for quality education apps and someone has done all of the work for you. All you have to do is choose your criteria.
- iPads in the Classroom: This site has compiled iPad resources that others have put on the web into one place.
- Jasztalville Blog: This is a great blog on apps for the classroom.
I would love to hear how others are using these iPods/iPads in the classroom!!
Hi Mrs. J! Your new job sounds like hard work! Some of the schools I visit use ipods/ipads for math and it's great! All of the apps/games are very engaging for the kids. I just gave you the Top 10 blog award, stop by my blog to check it out!
ReplyDeleteAndrea
Cheers to School