iPod Touch – 2010 style
After talking and thinking about how I would use mobile devices in the History classroom with a variety of people on Twitter and at Ed Tech Round Up, I decided to look at a few applications that may help me achieve my objectives. I always have in mind a number of questions when looking at technology/applications and the most important is whether I can do the same job without it (it keeps my inner geek instinct to use new tools without thinking about how useful they are in check).
One of the apps that has some impressive possibilities is Big Nerd Ranch’s eClicker and eClicker Host for the iPod Touch/iPhone. Louise Duncan plans on using it with her iPods (I recommend reading her blog if you are interested in using the iPod Touch in your classroom) and I can see why. Apart from its apparent ease of use and visual feedback is how it fits into Neal Watkin for passing this one to me). Essentially, Wiliam thinks good questions with multiple answers (without designating one correct answer) relays how much students understand and allows the teacher to adjust their teaching accordingly. For example, I may set a question on Women in Nazi Germany with five possible answers and the students have a minute to answer. All the choices may be correct but at different levels of the GCSE markscheme. So if the minimum target grade of the class is a ‘B’ but half give answers akin to a ‘C’ or ‘D’ grade I can then discuss this with the class and tease out the misunderstanding. It also allows the results of the sessions to be emailed for further analysis so decisions about the process in the classroom can be made.
Of course, this can be done using cards or mini-boards and the teacher checking visually and adjustments made during the lesson. What is really interesting is how the technology allows you to aggregate the information from the students in email form to be studied closely when more time is available for reflection, leading to a more thoughtful calibration of the teaching/learning process. Ideally, combining both the app and the cards/mini-boards would be a great way to check understanding in the classroom. I hope to explore the technological side of this in more detail over the coming year as well as looking at other ways to integrate mobile technologies into the classroom.
Image by nickhumphries @ Flickr
Look forward to see how you get on with it!
Me too! I hope to get something together to talk about at the SHP conference this year but more news on that next week.
[...] system that allows teachers to poll their class during a lesson. Thanks for this reference by Nick Dennis, who has written this blog post about the eClicker and Dylan William’s 2007 paper on good [...]