Clickers and IPod Touches!!!

http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/escondido/#video-escondido

http://www4.uwm.edu/ltc/srs/faculty/best_practices.cfm

I found two different types of modern technology, one specifically designed for the classroom, and the other one found very useful in a classroom setting: a clicker, and an IPod Touch. 

The clickers are a way for everyone in the classroom to get involved (obviously, every student would need one in my classroom), and a way to keep their attention during class. The first time that I’d even heard of a clicker was my previous year here at Johnson, when I was in Basic Christian Beliefs. I absolutely loved them because it would show where the majority and the minorities of the class stood on Christian beliefs/knowledge/backgrounds. In BCB, we mainly used tem as polls.However, I’ve thought of many other useful ways that the clickers could be used: a review activity, a way to show interest in a subject or previous knowledge of a topic, a way to get to know my students interests/likes/dislikes, and so many more options!! I really hope that someday, I can be able to have clickers in my classroom.

As a fan of Apple products, I had to find an Apple product for my dream classroom, of course! So, I decided to use the IPod Touch. By the time I am a teacher, hopefully the price of IPod touches, (maybe the older versions by then) will be cheaper, so it would be easier to have them in my classroom. A really cool idea that I got off of this website was that during class, the students could use their IPod touches to post comments on a blog that I would set up: it could be about an author/artist that we’re studying, or a specific topic that was brought up in class, or they could even post comments about what they would like to learn more about. I could also teach a student how to make a blog post on their own, and their fellow students could comment on their post! I am sure that there are many, many more useful ways that an IPod touch could be used in the classroom, because I just loved the blog post idea the best!!