iPods: Not just for music any more

Return to Summer/Fall Topics

From desktops to laptops and now to iPods and iPads…technology in the schools keeps getting smaller and more portable—but also more flexible.

This year, rolling carts of 20 iPods each have been deployed into Morningside Community School, Herberg and Reid Middle Schools and Pittsfield High School. And teachers and students in each of these schools are discovering just how much learning (and fun!) can be packed into these tiny units.

At Morningside, Principal Joseph Curtis explains, "I have loaded the entire Read Naturally literacy fluency program onto these Touches. The teachers have begun to reserve the carts to use with their students, and I no longer have to spend money on CD players, or the CD's, which are easy to misplace and break…or on rechargeable batteries. And since there's a timer app right on the iPod, I don't need to buy those any more either." Even more importantly, even the youngest children at the school love using the new technology. "We've begun to use math apps as well," says Curtis, referring to the mini-applications called "apps," which allow children to practice skills of all sorts—language, math, science and many others. "We've started with our first-graders, but the carts are booked so often now that I'm looking for ways to purchase more for the school. The teachers have embraced this technology, and of course the kids love the Touches."

At the middle schools, English Language Learner (ELL) teachers Erin Lenski, at Reid, and Kim Bilotta, at Herberg, also each have a cart of 20 Touches, funded by a grant written by ELL Coordinator, Virginia Guglielmo-Stees. At Reid, Lenski says that she is mainly using the handhelds for viewing and listening to podcasts she and the students create and then load onto the devices. The cart can be borrowed by other teachers in the school, and Lenski says they are using the iPods on an almost-daily basis, "mainly in English, Social Studies and Science—but we plan to begin using them in Math shortly. We use them usually to preview a chapter or a reading by developing a podcast with pictures to illustrate the main points of the text the students will be reading," she explains. "And we have also used the Touches to illustrate an experiment in Science." Podcasts are mini-broadcasts created to be viewed or listened to on a computer or an iPod, and Lenski has used these extensively with her ELL students over the past several years, creating them in the past on the laptops in the schools, left there from the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative (BWLI). She says students love using the iPods, but emphasizes, "We have kept the use pretty structured…though I'm sure the students would love to download music from iTunes!"

Louise Celebi, ELL teacher at Pittsfield High School, became enthused during the 3-day Professional Development this summer to prepare the teachers to use the carts. "There are so many things we can do with them!" she says. During the training, teachers explored the commercial and educational podcasts available for free through the iTunes store and various websites; useful apps, including translation apps, designed specifically for ELL students; and techniques to create podcasts and post them to their websites. But it wasn't until she tried them out for the first time with her ELL students that Celebi could really see how much they could do for this population. Technology Specialist Peter Shields was there to assist the first day and said, "The students were really excited to try them out. Their faces lit up when I went over the standard suite of apps with them—they loved seeing the time and weather in their home towns. And with Google maps, when they zoomed in to view their old houses, they were amazed." With a little help, students were soon using the web browser to find and begin to use bilingual web-based dictionaries…and that was just the first day.

"The horizons for using the Touches are much broader than I had envisioned," said Celebi. "I am now constantly on the lookout for apps with cultural and geographical value, like Google Earth, to help the students explore each others' homelands. These are definitely not just for translation!"

In addition to the iPod Touches, the school system's Special Education department has purchased several iPads, electronic tablets with Internet capability. Using the same apps as the iPods, the iPad, with its larger screen and keyboard, is uniquely suitable for certain students with disabilities. In some cases, the device can provide the help students need to communicate and learn, as was demonstrated dramatically this summer when a nonverbal autistic student was able to "write" a story about his summer vacation, using a special program that allows him to choose and string together symbolic pictures to make sentences—which the device then read aloud for him when he presented it to his teacher on his first day of high school.

At a substantially reduced cost over a laptop, both the iPod and iPad offer many possibilities for use in the classroom in the years to come. Already they can replace graphing calculators, CD's and DVD's. And, as textbook companies scramble to come up with interactive, 21st-century-ready digital texts, it seems clear that handhelds are here to stay in the schools of the future as well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FYI...regarding questions #3...we are purchasing 200.00 worth of gift cards for app purchases.

I recently had the opportunity to sit in on Louise Celebi's ELL class and observe the students' use of the iPod Touch cart. It was the first day they'd rolled out the iPods, so the kids were excited to play with them. I talked to the class about the basic rules of use, how they were to be treated, etc. This was all pretty basic stuff, but I was surprised to see the students' faces light up when I began to go over the standard suite of apps. Kids were thrilled at the prospect of seeing the weather forecasts or times of their hometowns (via the Weather and World Clock apps, respectively). After I helped them use the Maps app to locate their old houses their minds were blown. They easily adapted to the touch-based Safari browser, and were quickly using bilingual dictionary sites.

I talked to Ms. Celebi about her intended use for the iPods. She said that prior to the class I attended, she had figured she'd mostly be using translation programs, but after seeing the thrilled reactions of the kids to even the basic app suite included with the devices, she decided that the horizons were much broader than she'd considered. She says she'll be on the lookout for apps that might not be language-focused, but have some sort of cultural or geographical value, such as Google Earth. This sort of app will allow her class to use current technology to explore each other's homelands to a very specific degree.

She will use iTunes to sync her ELL cart-exclusive account with the iPods as well. We talked about using a local iCal calendar specific to her ELL classes, which would detail schedule changes, test dates, etc. Relevant Safari bookmarks will be organized for use within the class. Louise is on the lookout for multilingual podcasts, too.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Erin Leith and Reid:

1. We are using the iPods on an almost daily basis in content classes--mainly ELA and SS, and Science and will begin using them in Math shortly. We use them mainly to preview a chapter or reading by developing a pod cast with pictures to illustrate the main points of the section or text that students will be reading. We have used the iPods to illustrate an experiment that was addressed on a test in Science.

2. The iPods are being used by all of the students in the content area classes. I (ESL teacher) am creating the pod casts and syncing them onto the iPods, but all of the students Ell and non-Ell have access to the pod cast previews. We have used them primarily with the 7th grade red team, which houses the majority of our Ell's. I have used them with my mixed ESL group, also in a pod casting format so that students could listen and assess each other's spoken word poetry. An Ell student on the 8th grade silver team will be using the iPods to supplement her presentation (she will be presenting Thursday 10/7)--also in the pod cast format--allowing her to participate in an oral presentation while providing a "safe" platform to express herself orally in English. I have used them in my ESL class by syncing bookmarks or songs to preview a piece of literature prior to beginning reading. This has allowed students to gain prior knowledge and successfully complete a KWL chart prior to reading.

3. We are mainly using iTunes and the playlists with teacher/student created pod casts.

4. I have subscribed to a few pod casts but have not yet worked them into the curriculum. We will be looking at Math dude in 6th grade Math class (blue team)

5. Yes, as aforementioned we are syncing teacher/student created pod casts to provide chapter and literature previews for students prior to reading.

6. Students are enjoying the use of the iPods, overall comprehension has increased and all students are gaining prior knowledge of the subject before reading or being introduced to a new topic.

7. I'll ask some kids--or record their responses--and send them along--

8. We have kept the use pretty structured to gaining access to the content...I'm sure they'd like to download music from itunes :)

Louise, PHS:

So far we are using the IPodTouches approx 25% of class time with a goal of increasing the use of this technology to 40% of class time.

We have found many uses for these, initially beginning with an orientation by Peter Shields which explored the use of apps already available on the units.

These include:

-Clocks: World clocks for students to find and calculate time differences between local and country-of-origin

-Weather: Calculate temp differences (converting from Farenheit to Celcius) between local and country-of-origin

-Maps & Google Maps: Locate present locale and country-of-origin

Other free apps we've been able to obtain while awaiting funds to purchase apps:

-Dictionary.com and Spanish/French/Vietnamese dictionaries and translators to support vocabulary development in both the ELL and core-subject classrooms

-Today in History Lite

-Popular Phrase Origins Lite

-CNN Student News

-ListenIN

-Lit2Go

-NPR News

-American English Pronuncation

-English Through Stories

We've also created Podcasts and downloaded them to Itunes to be shared with classes.

These units will also be used to supplement and modify core-subject lessons which will support the co-teaching model to be implemented this academic year at PHS.