Reflection #6 The Wires Growing Out of Our Children's Ears!!!

Does it seem to you like kids these days were born with wires coming out of their ears?

That is because they are so connected to the iPods that they seem to not be able to function in life without them.

So as teachers, why don’t we take advantage of that fact.  “The iPod Nano and iPod classic are more than just music and video players.  iPods have functionality that can be used in many different ways for teaching and learning.”

They have an amazing variety of uses of which include:  Lesson Plans, Audio, Video, Podcasting, Notes, Reference, Quizzes, As External Hard Drives

The following website has a vast collection of ideas and links to additional resources for how we can use these wires in the ears of our children to benefit them as well as our overall classroom experience.  I have followed the website link with comments from the blog in that I thought might spur your imagination and curiosity.

http://elementarytechteachers.ning.com/group/ipodsineducation

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• We use them for many activities, but the main emphasis has been on writing. I have taught students how to record and playback on the iPods.  They have recorded their story or writing ideas onto the iPods and then listened back to them when writing.  These little devises have been very motivating for reluctant writers!
• -          I’m having teachers around the building record stories to place on it (Art teacher reading a book with art theme, Music teacher reading on related to music, etc.)  We will create a listening center with a 5-way splinter so that a group can listen at one time.  We chose books that we have multiple copies of.  I am going to play around with creating epub books so that student original books can be placed there as well.
• -          I have been using Tar Heel Readers this year.  I downloaded stories in PowerPoint and then saved as JPEG’s and then they can be viewed on the iPod Touch.  I’ve also done word lists in PP and then uploaded it to Animoto.  I have the Animoto app on the iPod so those can be viewed as well…I need to get over to the IEAR Ning to check out recommendations there…
• -          One of my favorites is the Sesame Street podcasts.  There is a large variety of videos on different subject such as hibernation and metamorphosis.  The kids love them too!
• -          We are doing research with Pearl Driver and Word Magic and are seeing good results
• -          NCTM has Everyday Math apps available
• -          http://www.apple.com/itunes/education/  = App Store Volume Purchasing Program
• -          http://learninginhand.com   = Tony Vincent’s Learning in Hand explanation of the program
• -          …course on Google docs and created a Google site: https://sites.google.com/a/teacher.plymouth.k12.ma.us/elementary-ipads/

I want to further explore this – especially as not only a teacher, but a mom as well.

I wonder if there are classes that you can take that will teach you of all the educational benefits to iPods.

Hay – this is sure a wonderful argument for a kid to use on their parents for getting an iPod.