Giving students tools

I stand at the front of my classroom and finish giving the directions to today's project. My students are trying to find are trying to find which planet in our solar system would be viable for supporting life. They will need to find the different characteristics of each planet, decide their needs, and be ready to support their claim to their classmates. The computer labs are full, the planet books in our classroom are outdated, and the students have decided that using a wiki would be the best way to organize and store their data as a group. The groups gather in their own space and start their research. They search the net for data, each working on their own section of the needed information. The internet is available on the Ipod Touch that are at their desks, they can research and collaborate with their group right from their desk. The Ipod is available for ¼ the price of a laptop and far more portable. The Ipod would also give my students a way to create their final debate about their planet which they could make in the form of a podcast to be shared with the class at anytime.

In the final class of my Master's Degree we were to find a new emergent technology and show how it could increase student learning. The Ipod is the piece of technology I chose because of the amount of ways that it could be used in the classroom. Students could be searching, listening, and processing information throughout the day. The technology would work with our current wi-fi set up in our building and would be portable enough to be used even on school grounds while doing an outside experiment. They are durable enough to be used by several years of students and would allow students to access their work wherever they can get wi-fi. The Ipod also has several applications that would give students practice on skills, or learning games when they are done with their school work.

As a new technology that is slowly making it's way into the schools of the future, we can start the change now. I have written a grant proposal for the new Ipod to join my 'bag of tricks', now the job is to seek funding and continue to integrate this tool ( I have one currently) into my plan for student learning.

-Melissa