As a CRT I find technology in schools sometimes out of reach. As a result I find that I don't tend to incorporate technology into my lessons, I'm simply denied the opportunity to innovate through lack of access. I am often very happy forgetting these things are even in the room.
The reality is that technology is everywhere and I need to innovate to keep up with the students.
So I bit the bullet 6 weeks ago and bought an iPad. The majority of schools I work in have iPads so it was a natural progression. I didn't really know how to use the ipad properly before this time apart from playing a couple of games and listening to stories being read.
Over the last couple of days I have been taking my iPad into the classroom. I have always been a believer in celebrating every student's success, no matter how small it is. I started taking photos of students working and completing activities, and showing it back to them as a whole group, asking students what they were completing, thinking and where they were heading next.
We then had a mother bring in a couple of day old guinea pigs for her child to show the class. Again I snapped away but this time I printed them up in document size and had the students write about the baby guinea pigs. We started with a Y chart to get the decribing words flowing in the areas of what they felt like, what they looked like and what they sounded like. The students got right into this activity and wrote some great adventures for these guinea pigs!
I also used the iPad when I was taking a biscuit 'face' decorating session with 30 odd kids. I was trying to work out how to introduce the ingredients without having to juggle them on my knee or on the floor when I remembered something Sue King had mentioned at a PD workshop; some visuals used with kids with Autism are photos of the items being used. So I decided to use this strategy to introduce the activity. I took photos of all the ingredients and instead of printing them up, I used my ipad to show the students.
On a different day, another teacher and I had the remaining year 2 students after their year 3 class mates were attending an overnight camp. These students came from four different classes and I was stuggling to learn all the students names. We finished the day with icy poles for a small treat and celebration of their wonderfully positive behaviour. The other teacher was tidying up from lunch and so I stepped in to take on this task. Earlier in the day I had snapped photos of all the students with their decorated cupcake they had cooked earlier in the day.
With my ipad in hand, I explained to the students that I wouldn't be calling students up by name. They looked confused at me. I turned the ipad around and straight away the group yelled the name of the student who's photo was showing. Blindly I put my hand in the box of icy poles and pulled out one, handing it to the student.
The group of students were now all leaning forward to see who was the next student to receive an icy pole, eyes on the ipad. I flicked the picture to bring up the next photo and away we went. A smile would come across every students' face when they saw their photo, they stood and received their icy pole and happily left the group. There were no complaints about someone getting it before them or even what colour they got and they got to have a look at how other students decorated their cupcakes.
You don't have to be a whiz at these sorts of classroom technology to innovate your teaching style and ability. Even just doing things in a different way, regardless of how simple, becomes an engaging experience for the students. It can be as simple as snapping a few photos and having a hand-held screen to show them back on and I assure you that snapping a few photos doesn't need 3 classes and an instructor to learn how to do!
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