Students Engaged

Hello. This is Regina again, updating information about my iPod/Studywiz study. After one week, we asked our students what they thought about the iPod. Did they see it as a study tool, or was it honestly, just a bit of a fun toy and status symbol? Did they find it useful or was it just one more device to carry around besides their phone. Was it just one more thing to remember in the evenings, getting it charged up and ready to go?

I expected a balanced response to these questions but I was really surprised at the overwhelming enthusiasm the students shared. One student claimed she felt really confident that her vocabulary, understanding and pronunciation had become better in just one week because she was playing with a whole variety of educational tools on the iPod. Another felt his translation and vocabulary was massively better because he sheepishly admitted that he was addicted to one of the Spanish Vocabulary games. Another felt her understanding of the text was better because she was listening to the audio over and over again and she was watching the video with the same audio and this also helped her understanding of the lesson passage.

Students in this photo are working together on verb tenses and translations.

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.

A tip for eLocker app users

A few weeks we launched our eLocker application for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. (more…)

Studywiz eLocker App

The new Studywiz iPhone/iPod Touch eLocker application is now available through Apple’s App Store.

The application allows you to download, upload to, and sync, the contents of your Studywiz eLocker. It’s really very cool.

You can read more about this on our website and download the free application from the App Store here.

We will definitely post up some more details on this shortly but if you download it then please let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. We would love to hear how this is used in the classroom and beyond.

You might also be interested to know that if you search for Studywiz on the iTunes store, as well as finding the eLocker application, you’ll come across these delights:

• the Studywiz Maine podcast
• Don Gibson’s “I Ain’t a Studyin’ You Baby”
• “Should Be Studyin’” by DrLUTEx
• Country Goes Rock ‘n’ Roll, Vol.3 - Rural Royalty (not sure of the Studywiz connection here)

Enjoy!

Handheld Learning 2009

Handheld Learning 2009 is now open for registration, and if you register before July 31st you will receive a FREE iPod Touch to use at the conference and keep afterwards.

At last year’s conference, Studywiz Mobile won an innovation award.

This year’s programme includes speakers such as:

• Malcolm McLaren, Agent provocateur and artist
• James Paul Gee, Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University
• Professor Elizabeth Hayes, Arizona State University
• Gordon Shukwit, Director of IT and Learning Technologies, Apple Inc
• John Davitt, International Learning Advocate, NewTools.org
• Tim Brighouse, Former Commissioner for London Schools
• Donald Clark, e-Learning Expert
• David Cavallo, Chief Learning Architect, One Laptop Per Child
• Tim Rylands, Teacher & Innovator