Thanks to my school district, my students are able to use ipod touches (30 for my class in total). They are so excited about using them. During open house, parents remarked, "Wow, this is right up her alley," or "this looks like a lot of fun," or "where could we download that app for his personal ipod." These remarks really excite me. Why? Well, because that was my biggest hope and goal, that students would begin to see their ipod not just as a toy, but a learning device.
Besides thinking we have the "coolest class ever" because we have the ipods, the students have really enjoyed using them to brush up on or being learning numbers in Spanish. They even have downloaded the app on the personal device for at home. It's weird, but you really don't feel like you're doing school work when you're playing. I played the game for about 20 minutes and had to stop myself, I was having so much fun.
The careers class also used them to do a bit of research on Gardner and his 8 learning styles. They found the internet easy to navigate (which is amazing because of how small the buttons are to type, but they're used to it) and quickly found an accurate website.
The students love the Spanish music on the ipods and it makes me so happy to see them writing down these artists names and wanting to buy the music for themselves. Can you imagine how much extra Spanish they would hear if even a 1/3 of the time they are listening to their ipod they are hearing Spanish jams?
Anyway, so far so good. Set up was a little tricky and downloading and set up took me a few days of summer, but WORTH IT for excited students. I also have created ipod commandments so students really understand what's expected of them, I think that is helping with the classroom management side.
