I chose to use the iPod Touch for student C, who has an IEP and gets pulled out for all subject areas: math, reading, and writing. It was hard to find the time to incorporate the iTouch since this student is in an out of the classroom a lot. However, I did have time during "Choice Time" to have this student use a letter recognition app. He was very engaged and learning too! I was also recently able to sit in during his parent teacher conference with the special education teacher there as well. The special education teacher said more practice with number recognition will help. I thought, iPod Touch would be a great way to get practice. I have been searching for a good app and excited to see how this works out and also assess if his number recognition has improved because of its use.
I think the iPod Touch is a great tool to have for this student. Since student C gets pulled out of class throughout the day, when he returns, he sometimes has to sit for a little while with nothing to do. For example, during math he comes in when there is about ten minutes left of whole class math time. This would be a great way for this student to have differentiated instruction. This idea just came to me, so my goal is to try this out this coming week.
In the beginning I wasn't sure how to go about using the Touches. But, the ideas are now starting to come especially for student C since he is not able to do the assignments the whole class is doing yet. The difficulty I am finding is finding a good app to fit exactly what I want. An app maker for teachers would be nice.
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I have also used the ITouch for science and literacy to record conversations with students. For science class, I recorded interview questions, and this was very useful to transcribe what was said and not have to write furiously to get everything down. In literacy class, I also used it to figure out fluency rate since the recordings are timed, and I was able to go back and listen to assess miscues and analyze student reading. Being able to record student voice as they read is wonderful and makes assessment a lot easier and more accurate.
If I am able to and have the time, it would be interesting to teach a lesson on expression using the ITouch. Each student would have a passage to read and the objective would be to read with expression. After recording all students readings, combining the recordings (I don't know how to do this but the idea sounds nice), a read aloud composed of student voices for one book could be done as the finished product. This certainly could be done with one student and one short book, and then shared with the class as a multimedia product with snap shots of the pictures/text in the book and the student's voice.
It sounds like we have very similar situations with some of our students. I have found it very beneficial to download books on my Touch (via Kindle) and have my students listen to the same books being read aloud on some of our newly acquired iPods (my MT picked up some used iPods after I downloaded some books onto the Touch). I also bring my iPad in for the kids to use while I am there. I only wish we had an iTouch or iPad for every student (especially the students who have IEPs). The books I have downloaded via the Kindle app have a feature that allows the reader to highlight a word they don't know to look up the definition. All they need to do is pause the iPod while looking up the word so they don't lose their place in the text.
ReplyDeleteI have also found the Touch to be a great tool for IEP students to use while waiting for the general education students to finish what they are working on. It only takes a moment to click on the app that is just right for each student to use, and those same students can have many apps on the Touch (math, reading, writing, etc.) to choose from - depending on what goals have been set for them at any given time. Students are able to work at their own pace, and at their own level.
I love your idea about having the students make interactive books. They could even share/present their books to their buddies in younger grades!
Great ideas here! I just read about a school in Oregon where kid were encouraged to pull out their Touches in all those short transition times and the school saw some real improvements!
ReplyDeleteSometime when you're less busy, I'm happy to show you how you could use the Touches to do recordings and create the multimedia books you've been thinking about.