Wormbog

DCHS is in the first stages of evaluating Apple’s iPod Touch for a one-to-one program next year.  Through a generous gift from our PTF we were able to purchase 23 iPod Touches to test over this semester to determine how well they can be used in the classroom.  I will try to keep you up-to-date on our progress and thoughts about how well they are working as a tool to help better educate our students.

The first step in this process is to teach our teachers.  I am going to start with a short introduction this Thursday that will include using Safari for basic web browsing, how to watch videos, and how to use the iPod as a classroom response tool.

Using the web will be an important part of how the iPod Touch integrates into our curriculum.  So often we are asked to bring the mobile lab to a classroom so the students can spend a short time using the web for research.  My hope is that the iPod Touch will be able to fill this need.  I often find that it is easier to read on the iPod Touch because I use the zoom capabilities to focus on the content and am not distracted by the sidebar content on the site.  We are also hoping that teachers will be able to use this for web tests that are primarily multiple choice.

Video has also become an important teaching tool.  Through the use of the mobile lab this year we have found that students are more engaged with the video when they are watching it on their own screen and have the ability to pause and respond to worksheets.  I will show the teachers how to provide video content that we can put on iTunes if they are going to use it on a recurring basis.  I will also be teaching them about Air Video.  This tool allows teachers to host video on their laptop and stream it to the students iPods.  I have tested it with 3 concurrent streams and it worked well.  The next test will be with all 23 iPods.  With Air Video teachers will be able to host video without requiring IT to resync each student iPod.

The next tool we are going to explain is iResponse.  iResponse allows teachers to create quick multiple choice questions and to show class response on a graph.  It also has a neat feature that allows the teachers to push questions to the device that can be answered at home and then uploads the responses the next class.

I am hoping that with these a basic understanding of these three tools teachers will start to integrate the iPod Touch lab into their lesson plans.  I will let you know how it goes.