Thing #6 I-touch

I found the i-touch at first to be quite foreign. It took me a few minutes to get used to the sliding around and changing. But having used the mouse pad on laptops for quite some time, I suppose I got used to it quicker than I would have. At our school, we have no plug in mice for our laptops, so the students should quickly get used to the i-touches (if they ever arrive …)

We need to work on how to find more free educational apps. In my limited experience so far, I was only able to download a few appropriate apps. I still feel very green in doing this. Sometimes I had to try several times before succeeding in downloading the app. What I did download was a math facts and state capital app.

I believe of all the hardware that is due into our libraries, i-touch will be one of the most popular just by the fact that it is a lot like a play station.

Here is what I see groups of students doing with this hardware. Teams can be formed with one student serving as the leader. They drill each other on math facts, geography, and spelling. Points are kept on an on-going basis. This could be expanded into the whole classroom. Competition breeds learning. For example, the first team to master the 9X math facts in less than a minute is the leading team.