Week 8 (informal)

This is the first part of this week's blog task, an informal reflection on the apps presented in the seminar.

During the seminar, we explored several different apps, designed for children to be creative within literacy. The first one we looked at was Book Creator, which allows children to be really expressive by creating a book. The decision of writing, writing style, pictures, colour scheme and much more is left up to the child. This is a great way of engaging children in learning, as it can be done in groups too. Leinhardt (1992) highlights the importance of working in groups, stating that learning is a ‘social act’, and encouraging children to work with their peers will boost their engagement with the learning, and enable children to enjoy learning more. The use of iPads is perfect for this app, as it is big enough for a group of children to use, and is portable, so that children can use the iPad as a camera and recording device in all areas of the school.

 Another app that we looked at during the lesson was called Sock Puppets, which was aimed more for the lower years. This app allows children to record their voices from one touch of a button. When their voice is recorded they are allowed to create the background and theme of their story. This amount of creativity enriches children’s learning, but is still simple enough for children with basic ICT skills to use.

Before this seminar, I was only partially aware of the apps available for children to use, which are not only fun, but also enrich children’s creative literacy skills. If a school is fortunate enough to possess a number of iPads, it is the duty of the teacher to enable children to use them with appropriate and fun apps. I learnt a lot from this week’s seminar, and could definitely see the benefits of the apps that we tried. This seminar has given me something to think about in my future practice.

 

• Leinhardt, G. (1992)’What Research on Learning Tells Us About Teaching’, Learning Research and Development Centre, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, pp.20 -25.