Ed Tech Weekly #195
In this episode they talked about the use of tablets. One of the hosts said that when it first came out it sounded better in words rather than in the use of it. Meaning that it sounded like a great piece of technology but not so much if you just bought one and kept it around the house instead of a desk top or lap top. It is great for a businessman or someone who is constantly on the go all the time. They could use it on planes and anywhere you went with it being an easy carry along item. The biggest downfall they said was that it was just a useless piece of machine if there was no service in the area, besides the fact that you can play Scrabble. I feel that using a tablet in schools could be useful. Students could stay connected and roam the school or other places in the area around school and still do research for a class. I remember when I was in high school we had to do a project for our science where we needed to do some research on pond animals and plants. Since our school lined a wooded park called Mine Falls we were able to go out into the park and check the river and pond for certain animals and plants. A tablet would have been a great resource to have back then. We could have taken pictures, typed in data, and really had a lot more fun than we did. So in that sense a tablet would be a great tool to have access in the schools. It would be a tool that would engage student’s interests and could help improve their grades by them working with the research right away instead of waiting for them to get to some sort of computer or other multimedia source. I personally have not used a Tablet so I am just going with what I have heard on Edtechtalk.
My wife is a K-5 music teacher and also felt that tablets had little use in the classroom until she went to the Music Educators National Conference in Baltimore a couple of months ago. At the conference they had a workshop on using iPads in the music classroom and she was blown away with all of the things a teacher could do with it. She has since been lobbying her school to purchase at least one iPad for the next school year.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE SCRABBLE!!! As someone who has never used a tablet, I can agree with the benefits you are bringing up. However, I wonder if children were to get permission to use them in a school setting, would they seriously take advantage of them? I would have to guess, like all other forms of technology, usage would have to be monitored to some degree. Like cell phones/texting, I could see some kids using them for all the wrong reasons. And what happens if someone bumps one in the halls & it breaks? I guess insurance should now be on the discussion list. Again, I am not saying that we shouldn't allow them, but I can see these opening up more cans of worms...Nice post!
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