iPods in my room

Michigan Educational Technology Standards for Grades 6-8 include the topic of Technology Operations and Concepts, and under that heading is this standard that all students need to understand before they leave the 8^th grade and move into ninth.

6-8.TC.9. understand and discuss how assistive technologies can benefit all individuals

In my classroom I do this by having students use the iPods for listening to assignments and having text read to them. The iPods are also used for calculators and quick note taking. Students enjoy it when they are able to text their answers into www.polleverywhere.com during class while using the iPods as well. The goal of this last year in the classroom was to introduce many different ways that students could use and apply the technology available with the iPods to help them in the classroom and beyond. It has been really nice to have a print and audio copy of an assignment for students to view and/or listen to on the iPods. This makes catching up a student that has been absent that much easier.

By having many of my assignments recorded and loaded onto the iPods it takes away the stigma that generally accompanies students who need an assignment read to them. When using the iPods in this way the student looks like any other student using an MP3 device. Most students only associate music and games with iPods, and don't realize that students are catching up on missing work or re-listening to an assignment, or watching a podcast that goes along with the day's lesson. It's amazing how students using the technology that is available when they know that they can have access to it, can and do use it. While originally the idea was to help our low reading students gain more confidence with the text being used in the classroom, the idea has actually helped all the learners become more confident in the material that they are expected to master.

Because this technology has been available this year to the middle school students, most of them have learned how to use the program Audacity. Audacity is simply a free audio recording program, that can be saved and transferred to many different types of formats, MP3 being the most popular in my classroom. Students have also learned how to save documents in PDF format, and then store them in their email accounts to access and use later on. These documents are easy to pull up and view on the iPods, which easily allow students to zoom in and out while they scroll through the document.

My view on technology in the classroom is this: if it's good for one student, then surely another student will benefit from it somehow. I never limit the technology resources available to just one set of students or another different set. The same technology is available for all students in my classroom. It is explained to all of the students how to access and utilize what is available and how to ask questions when they are unsure. Needless to say, that since I have in a sense made them the owners of their technology, I have absolutely no issues with vandalism or theft. Considering I have twenty devices that can easily slip into a pants pocket and walk off unnoticed, and they are not locked up, that's saying quite a bit. My students respect the devices and what they can offer them. They are actually very protective of them, and when other classes borrow them, they frequently will go over a list of do's and don'ts with them (unprompted by me – just our general expectations in our classroom). All of my students use the technology, and respect it. When they don't respect it and abuse the privilege that it offers, then they get busted (so to speak) and they expect it. By the way, all twenty devices that I started the school year with, I have ended the school year with.