Blog Post 2: Handheld Devices

Handheld Technology Deepens the Learning Experience

            Modern educational practices must include relevant emerging technologies to stay current on the needs of the 21st-century learner, and that often requires teacher initiative to learn side-by-side with students. Conn's (2013) article, Get Deeper Learning With Tablets, discusses the design and implementation of a science unit by first-grade teachers that featured daily tablet use to observe live animal habitats. Students were highly engaged and explored independently. They researched information according to their own interests and used the tablets to draw or capture images for their projects. The project culminated with a comparison chart of the many different habitats.

Handheld Technology More Convenient

            The use of the school's iPad cart allowed the teachers to begin the observation and research activity at the same time each day. They opted not to use the school's computer lab, which would have required special arrangements with other classes and additional transition time between classrooms that would take away from core subjects. The students, eager and enthusiastic, quickly settled into their work routine each day. Teachers could then make better use their computer lab time for tasks that would have been difficult on the tablet.

Handheld Devices Can Encourage Interdisciplinary Perspectives

            The article showed that daily use of the tablets with internet access, combined with computer lab time, and culminating in a shared class project display, allowed their students a deeper cross-curricular experience. The projects included the core disciplines of science, reading, writing, and technology knowledge and skills. Since the project took place over a period of time, student roles in the project changed and evolved depending upon where they were in the project. The handheld tablets allowed for differentiation according to each child's interest since each was able to choose their topic of research. This could only be accomplished with the use of a personal computing device.

Family Involvement

            Many students in today's diverse classrooms still do not have computers with internet access at home, but they do have tablets with internet access. The teachers in the article included parent communications through flyers with detailed and illustrated steps of the processes their children were using in school. The purpose of including this information for the families was so that parents would understand the processes of the project and continue supporting their children in the use of devices and apps for education purposes at home. In this way, due to the use of the same handheld devices in schools that families have ready access to, parents could more clearly envision how to support their children academically.

Reference

Conn, C. (2013). Get deeper learning with tablets. Learning & Leading with Technology, 41(2), 35-38. Retrieved from  http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2071/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9c85b0f0-addd-4e2e-b4af-c3cab08a8909%40sessionmgr110&vid=1&hid=127