So I'm going to be completely honest in this post. I have continued using and experimenting with my itouch (and iphone) and various education related apps in hopes of finding some groundbreaking teaching tool that will suddenly make life easier for teachers and open up countless doors for students who have various barriers to their education. The truth is- it hasn't happened yet. I have found some neat apps that will make life easier for sure but to be honest, I've found a lot more that are just disappointments. There are so many poorly developed apps out there that just don't do what they claim and while I would certainly have no problem investing a dollar or two for something worth while I don't want to pay for something that isn't going to work for me (as far as I know there are no refunds on apps). I think the problem is that the sudden introduction of smart phones and tablet pcs on the market has lead to app developers trying to tap into a newly opened market by rapidly producing tools that haven't been sufficiently tested. Additionally, I don't believe Apple has strict enough (if any) quality controls on apps being released.
As of now I have not found an application that is both useful enough and reliable enough to utilize with a student. I also don't know when I would find the time to teach a student how to use the touch. As of now all I have are speculations about what could possibly be achieved with the use of an itouch and with the current developments I am just not seeing a whole lot of potential.
As of now I have not found an application that is both useful enough and reliable enough to utilize with a student. I also don't know when I would find the time to teach a student how to use the touch. As of now all I have are speculations about what could possibly be achieved with the use of an itouch and with the current developments I am just not seeing a whole lot of potential.
"Ground breaking" is a pretty high standard! Do we expect all materials we use in schools to be "ground breaking"? :)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more about you think of the app reviews and directories that we put up on the tech wiki -- that are mostly generated by other teachers. Not enough there? Or the quality wasn't high enough?
Speculations? Again, I'm wondering if you're just dismissing the pretty interesting work that we've posted on the tech wiki. Would love to hear more about what you see there... clicking around there wouldn't take long, yes?
You're right -- there is a lot of less-than-valuable work out there (and Apple doesn't screen for learning theories, but they do reject many apps that are submitted....). That's why we did our best to steer you to some that other educators find really helpful.
Sorry that those resources didn't work for you!
And how would you know if you're really overestimating how much "teaching" kids need. Thousands of kids use these all the time, and few have had any formal instruction. What if they're designed to teach kids how to use them?
You'll only see the potential if you invest even minimal time in exploring. For your final post, let me know more specifically where you found the resources in the tech wiki falling short -- that will help us to improve this project!