Week 10 I-PADS IN THE CLASSROOM!

The reading that was assigned to this tutorial was about implementing the use of I-PADS in the classroom and whether or not they are really worth the extra expenditure for classrooms. 

This article discusses a project they had undertook in Canada involving 2 elementary schools one being a rural and the other an urban classroom. Both who had implemented the use of I-PADS into their classroom. Both classes had used the I-PADS for the specific task of developing digital story telling skills.The particular focus on upper elementary schools was because students were showing a disinterest in education and the researchers wanted to see the effects of implementing the I-PADS into classroom practices. 

Results from the project tell us that the use of I-PADS was a great  success as students from both schools had great experiences where access to the internet was much quicker and convenient then starting up a laptop. The schools were provided with support from a research team for the main reason on helping with digital storytelling. It was also seen as a great way for students to work independently because if the teacher had asked a question and the students were not able to answer, they simply looked the answer up on the I-PADS. However, with this comes the issue of whether students are really independent of dependent on looking up answers all the time on Google or on other search engines.

All in all, the use of the I-PADS in the classroom setting seem to be an effective resource for students to use because they were highly engaging in this research project.

 LEARNING EXPERIENCE CREATING QR CODES!

In class we had to create an activity using certain apps on an ipad or ipone. The activity we had to complete was to create a journey for students which were broken into step by step instructions. Alicia, Kyle, Charlotte and I for example had questions that led students to go to the library, then to locate a certain a book and return it to their classroom. These instructions were transformed into QR codes where student could only read if they had the correct iphone or ipad app to do so. The QR codes could be created on this website: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Overall, I think that I'd love to implement an activity where students would have to create their own QR codes and share with other peers and complete each others. It would be a unique lesson where I personally believe students would immediately be engaged. As with as any lesson which is hands on is any lesson a student would be highly involved with from my experience at prac.

References

Reid, D. & Ostashevski, N. (2011). iPads in the Classroom – New Technologies, Old Issues: Are they really worth the effort?.
In T. Bastiaens & M. Ebner (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2011 (pp. 1689-1694). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/