Goal for 2009-2010: Integrate iPods into the Subject Areas

A few years ago another teacher and I received a grant from Best Buy for the Online Science Fair. After purchasing the materials, we had quite a bit of money left over and decided to buy three iPods. Unfortunately, because of other priorities, the iPods were put in a box and set aside for the past three years, wasting away.

NO MORE! This year I have decided to put these tools to use. One of my goals for 2009-2010 is to find the best ways to use these three iPods in my classroom. At this point, my goal is to have my students consume information from the iPods rather than produce information for them. In other words, I have no plans to have my students create podcasts, videos, slideshows, or any other content. Instead, I'm looking to use the iPods in the following ways:

• Math Intervention: Students will view video podcasts and Unitedstreaming videos on topics that they are struggling with in math. For instance, say my students take a quiz on prime factorization and a few don't do so well. During a specified time they will be invited to my classroom to watch a video on an iPod that teaches prime factorization. After viewing the video and completing some more practice, they will be allowed to retake the quiz for a better score.
• Math Enrichment: It's unfortunate, but we math teachers often are so busy teaching our students the required concepts that we often don't get a chance to show them how cool math can be outside of the classroom. I'd like to have several videos/podcasts on the iPods that show situations in the real world where math is involved (like the Fibonacci sequence in nature, Game Theory, etc.). There are a few on the Math Guy Podcast.
• Science Enrichment: If a student shows an interest in a topic we are studying, I'd like to be able to find a podcast or video for him/her and have it ready for them to watch on an iPod. HowStuffWorks has a content channel on the Apple Learning Interchange with some interesting videos.
• Social Studies Enrichment: Current event videos come to mind here.

After doing a simple Google search (ipods classroom) I found some sites that will be helpful to any teacher looking to integrate iPods:

• Learning in Hand - Here I found out how to download a video from UnitedStreaming, add it to iTunes, and then convert it to a format that the iPod will understand.
• Education World has a nice page of links to some sites on iPods in the Classroom.
• Apple Learning Interchange

I Need Your Help

I don't get a ton of comments on this blog, but I'd like to ask if any readers have other ideas for using iPods with your students and/or if you know of other resources where I could find some. Thanks!

Check out: SMARTBoard Mini-movies Student Activities

iPods in the Classroom: Learning science vocabulary with video podcasts

The following is taken from a grant request that I wrote with another teacher in my building (the grant request was rejected). If you are reading from aggregator, click through to see an example video from TeacherTube.

Here's another idea for iPods in the classroom. Have your students create and view video podcasts of essential mathematics and science vocabulary from current units of study (see above example). The words will be selected from vocabulary found in your state standards, study materials, prepared lists, and lists of verbs used in test questions and curriculum standards. Have them use a planning guide to discuss how to communicate the concept and draft a script. This may include downloading of images from the Internet, student drawings, or photos from classroom digital cameras. Then have them use multiple recording and software tools to record audio, edit, and share their video podcasts with their peers.

Traditionally, vocabulary is often taught by presenting kids with a list of words and having them memorize it and then regurgitate it for a test. When students create a product such as a video podcast, they are creating meaning by actively researching examples and images to illustrate the word.

The project would enable students to apply vocabulary knowledge to the math and science areas as well increase reading comprehension and writing skills. Students would be able to hear themselves read their scripts out loud, this will influence reading fluency.

Assess the project in two ways: (1) Grades: by unit on tests in math science, reading and writing; quarterly through short quizzes on the vocabulary words; and ultimately through students’ performance on the state test. (2) Observations and student interviews.


Technorati Tags: education | teachers | podcasting | iPod

Check out: www.misterteacher.com | Rainforest Webquest | Symmetry in Nature

Developing Reading Fluency through an iPod Language Lab

Reading Fluency

• What is reading fluency? Fluent reading is comprised of three elements:
  
  • Accuracy - the ability to recognize or decode words correctly.
    
  • Rate - the speed with which a reader moves through text
  • Prosody - intonation, syllable prominence, and anything else that contributes to expressive reading of text
• Why is reading fluency important?
  • Lack of reading fluency often leads to comprehension problems
  • Dysfluency leads to frustration and lack of enjoyment with reading
• Why iPods?
  
• iPods can be used to record and play back fluent reading models
  
• Every kid in the world either has one or wants one and what better way to motivate a struggling reader than to use an iPod

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The iPod Language Lab

• The language lab will consist of:
  
  • • 3 - 5 iPods with accompanying Griffin iTalk Voice Recorders
    • Leveled readers and worksheets to use in practice sessions
      
  • A small group of students will be chosen to come to the lab 2 - 3 times a week to work through fluency assessment and practice - This will be a pilot project with future plans to increase number of students
    
  • The lab will be run by teachers on a volunteer basis outside of school hours or as part of reading instruction during school hours (TBD)
    
  • Assessment - students undergo assessment of reading fluency indicators
    • Accuracy - Teachers listen to oral reading and count number of errors per 100 words. Can be recorded on an iPod for later listening by teacher
      
    • Rate - Teachers conduct timed readings
      • Student reads for 60 seconds - count number of words read correctly and record on a graph - this is the baseline
        
      • Teacher and student set goal for next reading and record it on the graph
      • Teacher conducts instructional strategies (see below)
        
      • Student repeats timed reading of passage and recording on graph
      • Student is timed at least twice per week
      • Students eventually record themselves and conduct the process
    • Prosody - observe student during oral reading to assess prosody
    
    Instructional Strategies (using iPods)
  • • Students record their own reading and then listen on iPod
      
    • Benefit - Allows independent judgement of accuracy, rate, and prosody
    • Students listen to fluent readers read passages on iPod. Typically this will be the audiobook version of a novel we are reading in class.
      
      • Benefit - Students are provided with a model of accuracy, rate, prosody
    • Read-Along Centers combine supported oral reading and independent repeated readings
      
      • Teachers conduct Read Naturally method
        
        • Student reads for one minute to teacher
          
        • Student practices reading same passage while listening to recorded fluent model on iPod
          
        • Student then continues independent practice (2-3 readings) without recording
          
        • Student then reads to teacher
    • Assisted reading methods help improve prosody--phrasing and intonation (with or without iPods)
      
      • Echo reading - teacher (or recording) reads a phrase and student repeats, focusing on prosody
        
      • Unison reading - student reads together with teacher (or recording)
      • Cloze reading - teacher reads the text and stops occasionally for the student to read the next word in the text
    • Check out iPods
      • Students can listen to audiobooks from sixth grade reading list at home. This supplements reading in class.
      • Teachers can listen to students reading any time/any place
    • Security
      Each iPod is engraved with Property of Wyoming Middle School label (see below)
      iPods do not leave classroom during the day - remain locked in a closet
      Students must sign iPod out before leaving school with one
      Students sign an agreement stating that they are responsible for iPod away from school
      

An Innovative Teacher's Christmas Wish List

1. Flickr for Educators: If you read this blog at all you know that I love Flickr and have found many uses for it in my classroom. But I could be doing much more with this amazing tool if only I didn't have to worry about what my students might come across while using it. So what I'd love to see is the folks at Flickr work on setting up a safesearch option (just like the one on Google) that filters explicit text and photos. Then I could actually have my students go to the site and use it to find images to use in projects.
   
2. A classroom set of iPods: Now that it's possible to download shows from networks like National Geographic, Discovery, and Animal Planet, the number of possible uses for iPods in the classroom has skyrocketed. I can't imagine how cool it would be to take the tired practice of showing a video to the whole class and turn it into showing a video to each student individually on their own iPod. Heck, I don't even need a class set; take a corner of the room and have students watch the movies as part of a station-based lesson.
   
3. Unlimited access to the computer lab: I wish I didn't have to check out the lab weeks ahead of time and then try to fit in a lesson with computers.
4. Another class to collaborate with: I've been trying to find a teacher, or teachers, who is/are willing to collaborate on a project through blogs. Social studies, science, or math; the subject doesn't matter.
   
5. More time to read and blog: Dream on!
   

Check out: Digital Cameras in the Classroom | Spreadsheets in the Classroom | Technology in the Classroom

Technorati Tags: education | teachers | flickr | iPod | blogs

Podcasts: Worth the Trouble?

My students are currently finishing up a project on ecosystems that required them to work with a partner on a podcast. Starting Monday, we'll be entering our third week of work. It's taking way too long and has been way too much trouble for me; I'm wondering if it's worth doing again.

I got the idea to do this project after listening to a show on NPR called the 90-Second Naturalist by Thayne Maynard (who happens to live in Wyoming, where I teach). Since we were getting ready to start a unit on ecosystems in science, I thought I'd have my students complete a show called the 60-Second Naturalist that required them to choose an ecosystem and describe some of its abiotic factors and how they affected the organisms that lived in the ecosystem. So about two weeks ago my students researched these factors and began writing the scripts for their shows.

The problems began as the first students started to actually record their podcasts. We have no audio software at my school, so I decided to download Audacity and put it on four computers in my classroom. The software is easy enough to use--it took only a few minutes to teach my tech-savvy students how to use it--but having it on so few computers meant that I could only have four pairs of students working at a time. Furthermore, if other students are in the classroom, then they must be completely silent while others are recording or else all the background sound will be picked up. This meant that it couldn't be done during class time, but had to be done at lunch when there were no other students in the room. Lastly, in addition to downloading Audacity, I also had to download LameLib so that I could export the files as mp3's for eventual uploading to the classroom blog. The uploading, of course, will be another step that I have to do.

With all the work and time my students and I have put into these podcasts (and we're only half-way finished), I have to ask, are the final products worth the trouble? The effectiveness of any technology must be measured by the value it adds to a lesson or project. I do believe that podcasts have a lot of value, but right now I think the trouble outweighs that value.

Fun Things to do with Your iPod

I was going through some old bookmarks in the iPod section of my Furl Archive when I came across kottke.org's post titled 50 Fun Things to Do with Your iPod. Several of the fun things involved using the Notes feature--something I have yet to play around with. Here are a few:

1. Read the Constitution - Download the Constitution and put it on your iPod for easy referencing. Instructions are provided. American Constitution Society

2. Put RSS feeds on your iPod - Check out engadget.com.

3. Teach fractions (a stretch) with PodGourmet - Recipes galore at PodGourmet.

teachers | iPods