Creating Future Learners with Today's iPad

My Students

Students have moved from the abacus, to calculators, computers, and now tablets. Students are adapting to learn from tablets faster than we can create curriculum to teach them our core skills. Have the device in our room will allow us to learn our core skills at a higher level.

The students in my classroom are considered "my students", but I consider any student that comes through our elementary doors to be one of "my" students.

We all impact student learning, we all have invested so much time into our students and they have invested time in us. As we adopt new state and common core standards our curriculum does not always align with those standards. I want to continue to meet the needs of my students. The amount of rigorous language arts and mathematical material they learn on a daily basis can overwhelm many of us. The students that have come through my classroom crave learning, and they desire technology that matches what they use at home. Our classrooms and school are a combination of rural, low income, and middle income families that participate in a variety of government assisted programs. Our goal is to ensure that each child reaches academic excellence and leaves our building knowing our staff care about their personal and academic needs.

My Project

Picture a classroom, students are in their reading stations, and the teacher has a small group at a table. Students are paired up, reading and using apps to create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two main characters in the story they are reading. During another station time, students have typed a play using Pages and they are now performing the play using the Puppet Pals incorporating voice into their reading). Soon after they complete the lesson their teacher shares their play using Apple TV on the smart board. During math students are using the Math Apps to reinforce prior knowledge and learn new material at their own pace. This is all made possible by having iPads in the classroom. My students would use a variety of apps on the iPad. This device would provide higher level learning opportunities and foster creative thinking in the minds of our young learners.

This project will change the way students learn because it will change the way the lesson is presented and taught to them.

Placing an iPad in a student's hands opens a million doorways into a word that previously were not there when they learned through only textbooks. What better incentive to foster higher level learning than a tool they are familiar with and using at home. When children enjoy and are engaged in learning, the level of learning increases exponentially. They are ready for change.