Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Podcasts pt.2: Tablets, iPads, and Smartphones

It's Wednesday!! We're super excited it's already Wednesday because tomorrow we leave for Pensacola, FL to see our beautiful niece Cadence (Cady-bug) who was born March 5th!
Meet Cady-bug!

Steph also started her long term subbing today!! It's a very exciting week around here! 

On to what you came for...Our Tech Wiz Wednesday this week is part 2 of our Podcast series. This week we're going to focus on tablets, iPads, and smartphones (in the classroom, of course). If you missed last week's post head on over to read about (and hear) our Podcasts.

What Steph has to say...

As I mentioned in my podcast, I feel like we could turn the whole ban against cell phones around and use them to our advantage. We used Poll Everywhere in college classes, and I think it could be very useful and engaging for students. Poll Everywhere doesn't need a smartphone just a plain cell phone with text capability. When it comes to smartphones, there are so many free apps out there for all platforms.

But like I said not all your students will have cell phones/smartphones. So for portable connectivity tablets are great!

Now of course while having a 1:1 ratio of tablets to students would be a dream come true it's just not likely. The school where I'm subbing has purchased iPads for the classrooms. In the younger grades there's one per class (for the teacher mostly) and in the older grades there's 4-5 per class. Another dream would be to have 3G/4G connectivity (with the 1:1 ratio), so that like some school districts who pass out laptops like text books, schools could pass out tablets/iPads and students could have connectivity everywhere they go. This would mean all students would have access to the internet at home! An expensive dream...

Our school district is actually allowing students to bring technology devices from home (with a contract signed by teacher, parent, and student). Having any access to tablets/iPads is great in the classroom for so many reasons though. There are so many free apps you can use. These devices open so many doors in the classroom!

What Manda has to say...



In my podcast I talked about iPads and how useful they could be in a Science class. I also want to discuss how they can be used in any content area. iPads are a great classroom tool for students at any age. The greatest thing is their portability. Students can use them at their desk, in the floor, or even outside the classroom. If you were able to have one for each student you would not be confined to a classroom. I also discussed how great it would be to have a classroom blog. This would be great to have discussions with other people. A classroom blog could help with your students working together or it could allow them to work with people that are far away. I think that these would be an excellent technology advancement in any classroom. 

~Steph & Manda


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