Technology Reflection Assignment
Description/Experience
In our last seminar, we learned how IPads can be used in classrooms to help students enjoy and learn new content, and a special emphasis was put on learning literacy skills. Although many people believe that elementary students are too young to use IPads; however, we were shown that it is absolutely not true and that the elementary students made great academic progress by using the IPads. There are many apps that can be downloaded for every imaginable learning objective. These IPads also act as a motivator for the students to behave and have academic success because the IPads can be used as rewards.
Application
Application
I would use the IPads in my 2nd grade classroom as a group activity. Since we would only have five IPads to work with, I would put about five students in five separate groups and have them work together. I would use the an app that focuses on spelling words. The students would have to spell the word that they hear from the IPad, and once they spell it correctly, they pass it to the next student in the group. The group that has 5 complete circulations would win. By the end of the activity, the students should know their spelling words much better. I would asses this by giving the students a pretest before the activity, and then test them again after the activity. Not only are the tests evaluating their knowledge of the correct spelling, but it’s also reinforcing practice.
The students will be given five minutes to review their spelling words before they take a pretest. After their pretest, they would watch me do the IPad activity on the whiteboard so that they would be familiar with how it works. Once all students understood how to do the spelling activity, they would all get in their groups and begin. The first group who finished the five circulations first would win. This would act as a second motivator. After all groups successfully completed their five rounds, I would give them another test on the same words to assess how helpful the IPad spelling application was.
--Pedagogy-Content:
The good thing about this spelling application is that it is very simple and designed for elementary students. I would connect my IPad to the whiteboard so that my students could watch how the activity is done. I would let them hear the word that the IPad says and show them how I use the keyboard to type it. I would show them what happens if I misspell a word; it beeps and clears the word I typed incorrectly. I then would show them that I have unlimited attempts to correct the word. I would have to consider that most students have probably not dealt with an IPad prior to this activity; however, it is very easy to maneuver, so the students would catch on quickly. The IPad itself is a motivation. It seems appealing to students; therefore, I would not have to provide much more additional motivation to get them to become excited about using them.
--Technology-Pedagogy:
The IPad would serve as the main component to the activity that I planned for the students. It provides my students with an exciting and fun way to really learn their spelling words. It’s repetitive; they must take however many times needed to spell the word correctly. They can’t misspell the word and move on, they must learn where they’re making their mistakes and correct them. Doing a spelling activity on the IPad application makes learning really fun for the students and helps motivate them to do the best they can because they know their group is depending on them. When considering classroom management, I would have to think about students getting too loud, becoming impatient with peers, or shouting out answers. I would explain to the class prior to the activity that if they wish to proceed with the IPad activities, than they must follow the rules, or else the IPads will be removed from the classroom. I would explain that getting to use the IPads is a privilege so, they shouldn’t take advantage of it.
--Technology-Content:
By using the IPads, spelling can seem exciting and the students will look forward to participating. Typically, spelling becomes boring because the strategies of teaching it become repetitious; however, by using the IPad application, spelling seems much more appealing and it helps to motivate the students to try their best. Usually, students say their spelling words aloud every day and take one or two pretest to help prepare them. IPads can make learning spelling words much more fun and exciting. By using this activity, the students are forced to learn to spell the words correctly because they must keep attempting the word until all errors are fixed; their group cannot progress until each student finishes his/her word, so the all students are dependent on each other’s’ success.
--Technology-Pedagogy-Content:
Like I stated previously, I think that the students will learn their spelling words much better by using this technology because they are forced to learn where they are making errors in the spelling of the words. The application will not allow the students to move on until they correctly spell the word, regardless of how many trials are needed. While the IPad itself is very effective, the strategy that I chose is also effective. By making the students work in groups, they know that their peers are relying on them to successfully spell the word so that they can move on and be the first group to finish all five circulations. If the students worked individually, it would be much more time consuming, and more importantly, the students would not feel the pressure to try their hardest, so they may slack off and not give their full effort. I think that spelling is a perfect fit for an IPad application because it can be designed to make the students learn the correct spelling in repetitious and really fun way.
