Tool #10 Mobile Technology and Apps

During my field experience at Forest Ridge elementary, I was introduced to using mobile devices in the classroom and got to see the effect on the students. I saw the itouch as a huge motivating tool in the classroom. The students absolutely loved getting to use the itouch and the best part was that they were learning a great deal from these devices. In the kindergarten classroom that I observed the students were using the itouch to watch digital stories that read to them a book. The student was able to follow along with the story. There were many reading apps that are available to work with in the classroom.

One of the apps that I reviewed today was the HearPlanet (Lite). HearPlanet (Lite) is a audio tour guide of the world. The student can choose a location that is desired to learn about and this app will give you an abundance of information on the town. I think this app would be perfect to use in the classroom and will use it as a tool when teaching the students about different parts of the world.

Math Drill Lite is an app that allows the student to practice their basic math drills. The program offers reviews, practices, and tests for the student to use. This tool will be great to have the student practice becoming efficient in their drills.

Word Salad is an app that gives the students practice with spelling. The program gives the student tiles that have a letter on them. The student uses the available tiles to create a word. Not all letters will be available to use so that the student has to strategize to figure out what word can be formed.

Itouches and ipods will be incorporated throughout my curriculum in the classroom. As shown through the apps that I have reviewed there are apps for math, reading, social studies, and science. These devices are great to motivate students that are not engaged in learning. In third grade it is important for the students to have their math facts down. Itouch apps like Math Drill Lite will be excellent for students to practice the facts and efficiency. I have seen first hand the impact these devices have had on reading in as low as kindergarten. The devices motivated the students to spend more time reading. The students begged to use their free time reading with the itouches. I saw a huge benefit from using these devices in the classroom.