iPod mobile project

I’m Regina Cockerill, Middle School Technology Coordinator at TASIS England, an American-International school in the suburbs of leafy Surrey, England. This is our fifth year using Studywiz. We were fortunate enough to have been provided funding for a pilot study of iPods in one of our foreign language classrooms. This was inspired by Louise Duncan, another Studywiz user and great promoter of iPods in education.

Although the foreign language teacher knew in his gut that a ubiquitous device like the iPod could transform foreign language education, we are riding our own learning curve daily. The past two weeks has required figuring out what to purchase, figuring how to manage an AUP, deciding how much ‘freedom’ to give 11-14 year olds on the device, deciding what apps to purchase, deciding what our learning objectives and outcomes would be, announcing the project to the community, and launching the training and delivery of the devices to students.

The students have taken their privilege and responsibility really well. They are watching Spanish curriculum videos, audiofiles and .pdf files regularly. In addition, they are addicted to Spanish Word Search games where they are given the Spanish word and they must search for the English definition. These are usually played on the bus ride home. Students are already excited about how much better they comprehend their Spanish lessons because they can view or listen over and over again, at their own discretion. This puts constructivist learning in the hands of the student — perhaps the best way to learn.

One of the great surprises was that we, as teachers, were only considering the students’ need to access Spanish class documents from Studywiz. The kids of course, were so excited to find all their homework easily available through the Studywiz mobile interface … and all their eLocker documents available at the click of a button. These students began to realize the instant access of learning material that was available to them. We’re only in week one of a six week study. We’ll keep you posted.