I really like the idea of using Touches in the classroom for differentiated learning. I found numerous free apps to download from iTunes. Math is a struggle for some of my students and these apps will help them with adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Next week my students are starting on multiplication and I plan on showing them these apps. As Robin says, practice makes permanent. If they have an app which will tell them that they are wrong and they need to rework the problem, it will hopefully make the practice a correct permanence.
I do have a few questions: how much money should you spend on apps? Do some school districts pay you back for this? How much time should be spent using the apps? Since my school is working on the gradual release model, at what point do you introduce the app? Should students work in pairs on the app or should it be done individually?
I think that any school that budgeted for purchase of Touches would also budget for apps (and Apple discounts for multiple copies). And, I teachers can make the case that these are good instructional tools and spend their discretionary budget on those rather than some other things like classroom decorations... :)
ReplyDeleteI've seen good cases made for individual and for paired work... I think that it depends on the goal and how close the children are in learning needs...
I'm just reading about a school in Oregon where kids are really encouraged to just pull out their Touches when they have those 2-3 minutes of down time (waiting to go to lunch, finishing a project a few minutes before others) and kids are really learning more basic skills from the practice.
I think that if the app is good and open ended and lets a child progress, questions about time sort of take care of themselves, and it's mostly a question of putting things aside when other things have to be done....