In my fifth grade class I have two special needs students who are not always involved in the academics of the class. One of them seems to have given up. It does not help that they often come in from pull out classes during the middle of an activity. This last week I handed one of them my iTouch and had him use a number line game. The object was to drop the diver on a specific number to find a pearl inside a clam. When I checked back with the student he was dropping the diver on all the wrong numbers because he wanted to find out what was in the other clams. My question would be did he every figure out where the numbers were on the line? I assume he knows from when I watched him. Is he actually learning something? How do I find out? Obviously he is learning how to use technology, but will it help him beyond him just playing a game?
My other struggle is wanting to use the iTouch for things like Google earth, but not having an internet connection. I have to plan ahead, which does not happen. I think it could be a valuable tool, but I wonder how many I would need in the classroom and at what point they become a distraction.
The schools that are using these report that kids are actually more engaged in learning rather than being distracted...
ReplyDeleteIt sounds perhaps as if that one app made it pretty easy to "game" the goals and do things other than what was supposed to be done?
Was this enough time to get a sense of the potential.
I sigh when I read that we still have classrooms without internet access... while we're supposed to be preparing kids for the "real world" where wi fi is now everywhere...
How many do you think would be a good number to have in the classroom?
I think if we had 6 iTouches to start with, that would allow enough students to be able to use them without having fights or the fairness issue.
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