Week 7: Learning inHand

As usual, great models to bring technology into the classroom with tools students are familiar with outside of the classroom. The ability to use, create and have students make their own apps as well as potentially leverage a product they already own and are comfortable with, seems like a great solution to build engagement and increased learning for them. What fourth grader wouldn't want an excuse to bring their iPod Touch to school, and use it in the classroom?


So I understand all the advantages and what students and educators can accomplish with technology in the classroom, and I raised the usual question to myself... How can I get this in my school for my students? My answer is grants, and donations. We need to find a way to get the funding for these tools in our school, and that is where my research needs to start. Once I find a substantial list of resources, my next step is to socialize and publish these resources to my staff. If our school is proactive in getting the latest technology, we've got to make a breakthrough and get something to start with, right?

I have realized that there is a level of frustration I feel when I watching the innovations in education and our district is struggling with the same battles year after year, more pink slips, less funding, increased class rooms as well as out-dated and very limited accessibility to state-of-the-art equipment.

There are lots of benefits to iPads, iPods and OpenSource technologies for both students and educators. As an administrator and as a parent, I want my students and children to have the ability to access these tool and start using them to bring learning to life, especially as Brian Crosby does in his classroom.

That being said, as a school we can start small and share any tools we get, such as iPads, but we will need to be creative in how we share them and build upon our technology library. We also need to find ways to take advantage of what we have in our classroom today and push the boundaries with the use of open source and free tools, such as we watch this week in Brian Crosby's TEDxDenverEd talk. I don't think my school is specifically ready to support the tools Tony Vincent shows in the iHand videos, but we can set it as a big picture goal to reach.