Online forums for iPods in the Classroom

As momentum continues to build for the use of mobile handheld device in the classroom, it is important for teachers, IT leaders and administrators to share:

projects and activities
curriculum context
instructional strategies
learnings: what worked, what should be changed, what to avoid
best applications
best practice for maintaining a class set of iPods

One of the areas that interests me is the overall direction that people tend to take with these projects. In my mind, many of the available applications fall into the ‘drill and kill’ repetition category. Extensive use of drill based software in is opposition to the ISTE nets standards being adopted in many Boards. The ISTE Nets standards for students promote foundational ICT skills in the areas of:

Creativity and Innovation
Communication and Collaboration
Research and Information Fluency
Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making
Digital Citizenship
Technology Operations and Concepts

I hope that professional collaboration and sharing will keep the use of mobile tools in the classroom pointed in a positive learning direction. Certainly, having a room full of students with mobile learning devices in hand will fundamentally change the way one teaches. Perhaps learning about what this new teaching model looks like and defining best practices in this arena are a key component of moving forward. Lets not repeat mistakes and reinvent the wheel over and over. Share and collaborate!!!

I have list four online forums that I initially started reading in the summer. I have joined each one and now read them regularly. I hope you find some of the information and collaboration opportunities worthwhile.