Our school in 2009 is looking at using iPod touches for students in year 5-8 and also for staff. I was hoping to hear from like minded educators to see if anyone else was already using iPod touches in the classroom and how/what they were using them for etc?
Stacey - Abilene Christian University has some advanced installation an use date. They even have a conference called ConnectED every year evangelizing the iPhone amongst other things. They may be a valuable resource to help you with information. Let me know if you need some intro's to key folks.
Susan - if you are really interested I can get you a sample UN & ID but you may have to purchase the ACU app for $ 0.99. The back end CMS to create a push content you may have to see a video or have one of our guys give you a live demo.
I am interested. I checked out your site. It is really interesting to think of a way to provide this without the device. What should I purchase with my large investment? ; )
This will be an agree to disagree... I'm forever delighted to have no-camera's in a middle school environment. Yes they'd be wonderful for capturing many things, on the other hand, they're really not at all wonderful in the locker room for capturing many things... It helps us a great deal explaining to parents that this mobile device is really an educational device, not a recorder of misdeeds. Sorry guys but the realities of middle school. As for the voice-record, we have a bunch of the $9.99 headphone/recorders. They're terrific, teachers and students borrow them as need be. At this point I think we've added at least two to each of our ll carts of 30 iPod touches, seems to be plenty. That with the incredible options of the iPod touch, amazing applications for teachers and students at every level, simply a tool that cannot be beat. Thanks for listening!
I hope you'll look into GradePad, an iPhone/iPod touch performance assessment tool for teachers and trainers. With GradePad, teachers can make observational assessments anywhere. You can manage groups, create gradepad rubrics, assess performance, track improvement, and share data.
PI 83 graphing calculator is $.99 at the app store Texas Instruments TI 83 is anywhere from $30.00 to $100.00. Students could use it as extra one for home. Can they use in class?
Many free education apps for it. Click on the Apps store-categories-scroll down to education and I clicked on the free button at the top to see the free apps first.
Right now Apple has it set up so you purchase it once for fee and can put on class set. Don't have to pay extra. I'm sure soon they will figure out how to add so you can purchase a class set.
You can use as student response systems (Clickers)
Download free ebooks and put on iPod from Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page You can copy the text and have Automator (Mac OS) turn the text into an aiff file and then add the text back so students see and hear the story to improve reading skills. That part was really hard and I don't think I can take anyone through the steps.
He showed us a much cheaper microphone instead of the $60.00 ones I was looking at. The look like a large push pin (tack)
Here is a wiki to check out: http://ipodclassroom.wikispaces.com/. Look @ the links to the left for FREE apps! I have just started sifting through them. Some look great!
I'm about to introduce the iPod Touches to my students, and am setting up the organization of the devices and the assorted accessories that go with them. I've purchased durable plastic bags in which to place the iPods and their accessories. Would any of you fine folks take a look at this document that I'm going to print and place in each bag? I'm looking for suggestions on improvements to this organization.
The first page will be attached to the inside of each bag, whereas the second will be for students to fill out and the end of each period of use. They'll use the BatteryMagic app. to track battery use.
Thanks,
Hi Eric - like the idea of a bag/ pack for students to keep the touch and accessories in. The splitter - you're planning paired activites then? Good idea to track the battery (tho you've written 'batter') use. Will students be required to track this data over time and analyse perhaps?