Since my last update, I have not introduced the iPod Touch to the classroom as a way to differentiate instruction. One of the reasons for this is that I don’t have complete knowledge of the full capabilities of the iPod yet. Additionally, I believe that some students that are not offered the opportunity to work with the iPod Touch would feel that they were being excluded and I was not being fair to everyone in the classroom. In 3rd grade it seems like the teacher being fair, especially with things that are considered a hot commodity (such as working with technology), is very important to the students and they will explicitly express their feelings about fairness (though they may not practice what they preach).
I still believe that using the iPod Touch in the classroom to differentiate instruction is beneficial, but the teacher needs to be comfortable and knowledgeable with the technology to use it to its full potential. It’s my goal to become more familiar with the features of the iPod, so that I may give students additional tools they need in order to succeed.
Is it possible for a teacher, that may be lacking additional support from either volunteers or EAs, to work on differentiating instruction using technology when the technology is hard to share with the whole class at a time? Especially when it comes to students needing to feel that the teacher is fair to everyone, how does the teacher incorporate small items like the iPod touch? I can see that giving all students access to iPods simultaneously would be beneficial, but with the tight budgets in many school districts, this may be a fantasy. Or, is it meant for teachers to find the potential benefits and be advocates for students’ needs, so they will go out and find the funding through grants (similar to UWB’s approach to obtaining iPods for their students)? If so, would a teacher want to go about this for their own class, or should it be a school wide effort, so that all students in the school can benefit?
You raise really good questions here... mostly about what's "fair". Kids all learn differently, and to think that it's only fair if we have everyone doing the same thing at the same time means that we lose a lot of kids who learn outside the box... I really do trust that there are teachers who have worked these things out and that kids can be trusted to know the fair isn't always the "same" (no kid would argue that some kids shouldn't wear their glasses unless everyone gets to wear glasses...).
ReplyDeleteIt would be a very unusual situation to have only one Touch in a classroom, and at the same time, lots of your classmates are having kids experiment so that they can really understand how kids might use these things... so that they can be the advocates for deciding whether it's a better use of money to invest in technology or to buy more workbooks...
Every school is trying to figure out how to provide kids access to technology, and handhelds are by far the least expensive way to do that.
And some schools adopt Touches, others pilot with some classes, others (as we did here) are bought when teachers go out and find the money,'
And I do want to nudge you to think more about your idea that teachers have to be the experts on such things before kids have access... especially with a tool like the Touch that is designed to be very intuitive.
But play while you still have yours!!