"This is my 3-year old daughter the day the
iPad
came out," said Patrick McGee as he displayed a movie of a young girl
sitting at a kitchen counter, gripping an iPad in both hands. The
audience watched as the little girl found, launched, and began to use a
Dr. Seuss app; all without intervention or explanation from an adult.
"Kids know--intuitively--how these things work; even at 3," he said. "We
need to use that."
The
key reason to implement mobile computing technologies as the iPad and iPod Touch in the
classroom is student engagement, says McGee, the assistant principal of
a Florida school. He says the technology can be used to increase productivity or
involve students in activities that were uninteresting to them as a
pen-and-paper process. McGee's experience includes piloting programs for both the iPad and
the iPod touch. "We have used them at the elementary level" to enhance
reading, improve comprehension, and measure fluency. At the secondary
level, the focus of these devices has been on math, science, and for use
as a powerful reference tool. "One of the really great things about the
iBooks app is that each book comes with a built in dictionary." That's
pretty powerful, he said.
McGee also pointed out the many productivity uses of the devices, listing several apps that he deploys regularly, including
iBooks, e-mail,
LogMeIn,
KeyNote, and
Pages; many available for both devices.
T.H.E. Journal (3/2)
