Quality teaching instructs us that reflection and evaluation is vital in the development of ourselves as teachers.
Photo courtesy of Loco Steve
As teachers we reflect on our students daily – “Why did Nathan do this?” “Why did Sarah do that?. We also evaluate our own teaching and lessons – “That was a disastrous lesson” “Why did I use that manipulative?”
Evaluating the use of the iPad in the classroom is just as important. The significance of gathering data and information about iPad integration will allow for the following:
- Providing Feeback- gives you great insight in how differently the device is being used across your school as well as how teachers feel about integrating the iPads. Anonymity is probably a good thing here in order to gain honest feedback yet also understanding what grades use/feel more comfortable with what function may provide integral feedback.
- Promoting direction – giving you an idea of where you have been and where you need to go next.
- Concrete data – stakeholders may inquire about the effectiveness or benefits to learning and with concrete data, you can share information about how the devices are being used and their value.
- Focus – the focus of the iPads might initially be student oriented but evaluation might determine that the focus should actually be on teacher PD (professional development) at that point in time.
- Reason – reinforcing to the community and staff that the decisions being made and the directions taken are based on evidence and research not just one mans vision.
Below is an example of an evaluation used for the reasons outlined. Using a Google form is beneficial in collecting and organising the data gathered.
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Good blogging!
Evaluation any thing in life makes sense. As evaluation provide you the exact answers, on what you should do and what needs to be changed, great reasons on iPad integration and thanks so much for form!@bose
Looks very useful for next year….going to try an iPad program. Will these replies to the survey be posted any where that I could get ideas?
If you’d like the results to the survey I’d be happy to email it to you. Thanks for your feedback!
Awesome. Thanks! davis.ken@gmail.com
Good shout. What we really need is a for some sort of vetting of education apps. I bet there will be tonnes of teachers reviewing the same apps and finding them crap or inappropriate.
A teacher in my school downloaded the 100 top apps and ended up only using 5 of them.
And I sort of worry when I’m reading reviews that people are posing as teachers to promote their own apps so I don’t trust them. It would be great to have a trusted number of reviewers that could categorize the best apps out there and who they are best suited to. Does this already exist??
You’re absolutely right! My colleagues and I are forever trawling through the app store for decent apps for education. What we found was a whole lot of rubbish so rather than that, we have a selection of websites (some of which are in my blog roll) that we use. Additionally, one website which is fantastic is http://www.appitic.com where they have organised apps into Key Learning Area, Blooms Taxonomy and Multiple Intelligences.
Good luck!
Do you see much of a role for apps that encourage collaborative learning?
Check out, http://www.interface3.com for apps that have good educational content.
There isn’t many but a lot of work has gone into working with teachers and children to put these together. They’ve got one called ‘I have, who has’ and it is aimed at collaborative learning and it could do with some improvements but there is definitely potential there. It would be a shame if iPads made children’s learning more isolated, don’t you think?
The idea of collaboration in apps is brilliant. Although the iPads are a very personal device, we are seeking to become increasingly collaborative so these kind of apps should become more prevalent.
The ‘I have who has’ concept is great – there are some amazing resources that can complement the interface3 apps such as the ‘I have who has’ books by RIC Publications.
Definitely potential there!