11.5- Thing #6

iTouches/iPods are so easy to use. There are so many apps that are appropriate for students/the classroom that ARE free. I just went to a district tech session with an apple rep as the presenter. Unfortunately, I was completely bored during this 6 hr. workshop because I really did know how to do everything for this presentation. To make the day worth it, we received a handout with tons of apps for the different subject areas (all free too) AND I won an AWESOME door prize- a rockstar so now I can have 4-5 iPods connected and turn them into a listening center. Depending on your class or the time of year, you will need to download what you want on the iPods or provide certain choices and then let the group decide what to listen to (music, audiobook, podcast,...). If not every student has a device, partners or group work will do. Just like with literature circles in the classroom or experiments, every person in the group can have a specific duty: leader, recorder (voice or text), getter... You can even, depending on what the assignment is, switch devices and have groups build on what the previous group did on the device.