Imagine if students from my English classes had the technology to record and share presentations digitally or work together to research for projects and papers during class! A classroom iPad would give students the opportunity to learn and interact with one another in innovative and exciting ways.
My students are incredibly diverse, coming from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Our school is a low-moderate poverty school and many students receive reduced price or free lunch. While many students do not have the resources to help them achieve their goals, many of these students have the passion and motivation to attend college after high school. While I teach classes for these students who are dedicated to attending college, I also teach non college-prep English classes targeted at reaching ELL, special needs and at-risk student. With the technological advancements that are becoming an increasingly necessary component to accessing the world, it has become critical to educate all students to use technology effectively. It is my desire to provide them with relevant and engaging hands-on experiences with technology so that they can learn these skills and apply them in their lives outside my classroom.
My Project
A classroom iPad would benefit all of my students tremendously. It would enable students to reach the standards set by the Common Core by giving them the opportunity to integrate multiple sources of information in a wide variety of formats and use their knowledge to effectively evaluate these sources. iPad apps such as the Side by Side app would allow students to view sources side by side in a split screen. This would be an effective tool during a lesson on journalism by helpings students to compare and contrast current event articles and engage with the texts to effectively identify and analyze the rhetorical strategies of both articles. The iPad would also provide students with opportunities for collaborative in-class research without the need to go to a computer lab. It would allow me to display relevant images or stream audio and visual aids to be shared around the room. For students on home-hospital leave, an iPad would enable me to record lectures and share them digitally.
This project would be highly beneficial not only because it would get students excited to learn in new ways, but it would also validate the use of technology in the classroom by providing relevant and meaningful experiences.
Rather than dismissing technology as a classroom distraction, it is my goal to show that technology has a legitimate place in an English classroom and in education as a whole.
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