Playing or Learning?

One of our techno savvy 2nd grade teachers, Mrs. Cooper, offered to host a group of TCU students wanting to observe technology integration in the classroom. She thought about presenting a new lesson but eventually decided to have the students share and teach the college visitors using iPads. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on creating VoiceThreads based on the water cycle (a topic studied by the younger students). Since VoiceThread is a collaborative tool, the students wanted to share their work with the visitors and then invite them to leave comments. It was a fabulous way for the children to “teach” others about how this application worked! The college students were wonderful – leaving comments on as many VoiceThreads as possible. Some left written comments while others recorded theirs.

The next activity was to share Mrs. Cooper’s blog with our visitors. Mrs. Cooper had written a post inviting student comments on an opera we saw this morning. The 2nd graders went right to work – opened the blog, logged in, and entered their comment. Several also shared a biopoem that had been written earlier in the year. Of course, they encouraged the college students to leave comments on their posts!

The only problem we encountered was that a handful of iPads weren’t able to connect to the wifi so we had a few disappointed students. However, with others quickly offering to share an iPad, all turned out well.

It was very exciting to watch the learning that was occurring. There was a busy buzz within the room, lots of talking but not one person was off-task. One of our faculty members happened to walk by and asked, “Are they playing games?” Hence the title of the post! Why do some folks think that iPads + happy interaction = playing games? These students were so focused on sharing, teaching, and learning. They didn’t need games to be actively involved!

Here are a few pictures from today’s events.

1 Comment on Playing or Learning?

  1. Mrs. Cooper
    February 22, 2012 at 11:08 pm (12 years ago)

    This was such a fun experience for two teachers, university students, and my second graders. The session afforded my students an authentic forum in which they could share their projects with observers. I felt this was a validating opportunity to showcase all the students had learned during a four-week thematic/technology-infused project… and with an audience to boot!

    Reply

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