Saturday, June 2, 2012

Are E-books really good for all our students?

I love integrating technology in my classes. My school will be piloting iPads in the World Language department and I already have a long list of appropriate apps to use for class.  With so much technology being used in our classrooms, some might question how long we will still be seeing books that have paper pages.Have you notice the line up of Nooks at our local Barnes 'n Nobles bookstore and even the Kindle app on mobile phones? Obviously many people are seeing the many advantages of e-books. But are their any disadvantages for our children?

Kate Garland, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Leicester in England, has done comparison studies with students reading the same content in both media with different results in student performance.  The surprising results were that students retained information quicker when using paper books as opposed to e-books.  E-books seem to require students to read over pages. 


Now the truth; I had a Kindle and soon it found it's way on the shelf collecting dust. Why? Well, it seems I like others, appreciate the spatial context in a paper book.  I like knowing where on the page something was written; was it the lower right-hand side or top left-hand side?  


Check out the article in Time Magazine http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/14/do-e-books-impair-memory/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fwellness+%28TIME%3A+Wellness%29



Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Flipped Classroom : Education Next

The Flipped Classroom : Education Next

Teachers around the country and have been using digital lessons from the Khan Academy for their students. The Khan Academy is on a mission to provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. The library of videos covers k-12 math, science topics and even some finance and history. The lessons are about 10 minutes long and especially purposed for viewing on the computer.

This is a great way for parents to get involved too.  Parents can get the lesson and help their child understand.

By the way, I made my own flipped lesson.  My results surprised me.  Most students watched the video I posted online of me teaching Spanish stem-changing verbs but most of the weaker students didn't.  I even gave them a few days to watch before I delved into practice.

I made another one and I got similar results.  I think I know what I must try.  I'm going to try to have a student give the lesson.  Someone students might want to see, as opposed to their teacher!  I'll report back with results!