Mobile technology itself will not replace poor teaching but it can enable a good teacher to understand how they can reach the individuals within their class by tapping into the different methods of learning that an iPad supports.
What did I use in the classroom today?
SPAG - takes up a great deal of the English curriculum. In my experience children need an awful lot of consolidation with spelling, grammar and especially punctuation. So today I was able to use the power of the iPad to scaffold the different levels of learning when we were revisiting the classes of words used in a sentence. Some children were at the level of a close procedure. Being able just to substitute a given word in a word bank into a sentence. This was delivered on Showbie so the word task was able to be annotated without introducing a third app.
My second group were able to access QR codes which gave the clues as to the job of one of the words in the sentence, for example ' enormous' is a describing word, they had to ascertain the definition of an adjective from their 'bingo' inspired wordbank.
Another group was asked to use propositional phrases, conjunctions and adverbial phrases this group made use of their newly acquired Tellagami skills and able at the end of the written task to explain through animation the job of each of these parts of a sentence.
In spelling, we were able to use the voice recorder on iPad voice to record saying spellings in 'a say it silly syllables ' so that we were able to accentuate the way it was spelt for example: veg-a-table or rea-son-able. These phrases can then be free trade and we visited to aid memorisation. Using the correct handwriting app can also support spelling as the feel of the word on the page can be transferred into the muscle memory of the child so that they can identify when they're making an error in spelling.
When looked at in their constituent parts they don't amount to much but over the course of the year broken down into terms where the teacher is enabling each learner to try out and experience a new way to form their understanding, iPad can be a really powerful tool to support learning. It's fun, it's quick and easy to share and to disseminate and you don't need any additional equipment other than the device that the children have in their hands.The final and most compelling reason to mix-and-match teaching strategies and presentation of tasks was that this mixed group of year five and year six spent an hour perfecting their SPAG. Added to these benefits, AirPlay to the class screen and screenshots added back into Showbie, the feedback given to the individual is tailored to needs. These bespoke next steps to success ensure a learning journey that continues to be built on firm foundations.
No comments:
Post a Comment