Article Review 3

Article Review 3

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/02/09/02apps.h04.html

I find this article quite useful for my journey of app development.  As my head has been spinning to figure out just exactly what type of app I want to create, this hit me at a great time (not to mention it is a snow day).  As Ian Quillan indicates, there is a broad range of educational apps, but very few that actually can function in a classroom.  The teacher-student feedback in more important than I think many people are letting on to here, and you can't replace the human element.  How do I know that my students are engaged when we are engaging in conversation in German?  Well, if they respond to my prompts or questions accurately, if their grammar and sentence structure is on cue, and body language.  If they are engaging in conversation through a mobile app, I may not know at all if they actually are meeting my targets.  I think it's all about how the teacher monitors the use of these devices in classrooms.  It is the teachers responsibility to ensure students are on task and engaged. 

There are many ways this can be done.  Some have been presented in this article, such as LanSchool Technologies, that help teachers monitor what's going on, but I think this can be done without the use of more tricky software (no offense LanSchool - honestly I am not familiar with your software).  For example, I utilize a document camera and have students share what they are doing, what they find, etc. to the rest of the class.  This not only highlights that student's work, but also ensures they stay on task, as they are never sure when they may be called up to the document camera.

As the author clearly states, we should not look toward apps or other new technologies to "fix" or to replace tradition instruction.  Let's face it, most of us also learning in school via "traditional" education and we've turned out fine (ok, maybe not fine, but decent).  Let's look toward using these technologies, mobile devices, and mobile applications to enhance that which we are already doing in the classroom.  We shouldn't try to replace our normal classroom techniques (unless, of course, they are not successful), but rather make them better.  A good friend has always said to me, "you don't want to teach your first year 27 times (currently the amount of years worked it takes to retire in Kentucky...not that I'm counting, but I'm down to 22 years and a few months...3 to be exact), but rather make each year different by gradually improving on your methods and techniques."  This is where technology comes into play.