Kayla Washington

EDTC 610
Scenario
You are an experienced teacher at your school. Your principal has seen some of the online
activities that you have designed and developed for this class. She would like you to lead a
professional development workshop for other teachers so that they can learn how to
incorporate web-based activities into their teaching. Before that workshop, she would like
you to provide teachers with an overview essay that explains your approach to using webbased lessons in instruction. Your audience for this essay is other teachers who will be
attending your workshop.
Instructional purpose
Learning is different in the Techvionrment. Its a project-based, student-centered
learning community where the monkey is on the back of students to learn, not on the
teacher to teach. For this reason, teaching professionals in Techvionrment will be very
important as reflecting their primary role in facilitating learning. Most successful teaching
professionals in the Techvionrment will take great pride in this role. Because of this different
style of learning, the Techvionrment requires a special kind of teaching professional. The
success of the Techvionrment ultimately depends upon accurate funding, well trained and
managed staff, prompt software, detailed outcomes, as well as a great county support
school wide system. Techviornment will be fully-integrated classroom systems that include
hardware, software, scientific and media equipment, hands-on construction kits and flexible
furniture systems. Techviornment are full turnkey programs including curriculum, ePortfolio
documentation and assessment systems, professional development and ongoing technical
and professional. This classroom will challenge students with engaging hands-on, minds-on
projects that are flexible and open-ended. Support them with an academically-linked
curriculum that guides learning while offering opportunities to explore topics of personal
relevance. Provide support systems that authentically assess real learning and the

development of 21st century skills. Learners perform better in core academic classes thanks
to the applied learning thats part of every Techviornment experience.
Advantages of iPad Education
Recent technological developments have presented teachers with unique
opportunities to expand and modernize teaching methods in the classroom. With many
educational technologies to choose from, it is important to utilize a tool that will not only
provide an engaging experience for students but also have the potential to fulfill a broad
range of subjects. An analysis of supportive applications has resulted in concluding that the
Apple iPad will provide an engaging educational experience while presenting many
interactive opportunities for the students and teachers to explore a broad range of subjects.
Additional information shows that the initial cost of iPad purchases will, if used properly, be
exceeded by educational benefits.
Kids gravitate towards technology in school , after school , or during school. It is
known fact that students want to come home and possibly play video games , log onto the
computer to get on a social site, or they want to continue in school on the computers. With
a world of information at their fingertips nowadays, it seems like kids should be finding it
easier than ever to succeed in school. We want to call this tool at our fingertips the Ipad.
However, as more classrooms invest in the latest technology, test scores remain the same,
bringing its effectiveness into question. Incorporating technology into the classroom
requires a double innovation, says Shelley Pasnik, director of the Center for Education and
Technology, educators who receive new technology must first learn how to use the
equipment and then decide whether or not it supports the class objectives and curriculum.
For example, an instructor may restructure a lecture into a group activity, having students
conduct online research to boost their understanding. With such a vast reference tool such
as the ipad, the students might pose questions that no one in the class, not even the
teacher himself, can answer. Many teachers and schools choose to avoid this situation by
discouraging the use of computers in a well-organized lesson. The latest pieces of
technology that has been used in the classrooms range from Smartboards, ELMOs, or iPads

stays locked in a closet as they struggle to find the time to effectively incorporate them into
the curriculum plan. Despite the challenges, incorporating ipads into education still has
proven benefits, especially when it comes to personalized learning. From math games that
adjust the level of difficulty as players progress to electronic books that talk and respond to
the tap of a finger, products that personalize the learning experience for students often
benefit their understanding all through various applications on the ipad. An interactive game
is more engaging than a book, so Ipads often promotes more practice and review in areas
requiring memorization, such as spelling, math and geography. This frees up time in the
classroom so educators can focus on skills like problem solving, character development and
critical thinking. Ipads also makes it easier to spend more overall time on learning. After
school and weekend time can become effective learning time with the right technology.
(Crawford, 2013)

Influencing student engagement in the classroom can be achieved through the

implementation of a computer interactive program. These interactive programs have been
recently proven to increase both student engagement and the average number of correctly
answered questions. A recent study conducted by James Basham compared the
engagement and test results of students with emotional disturbance when using paper
worksheets and an iPad. The results of this multi-test study showed significant increases for
all students. The average amount of engagement for students while using a paper
worksheet was 81.4 while the average number of correctly answered questions per minute
was 0.66. Compared with the same tests conducted on the iPad, average engagement was
increased to 98.9 while the average number of correctly answered questions per minute was
increased to 3.24 (Basham, Haydon, Hawkins, Denune, Kimener & McCoy, 2012). This
shows that the iPad scored 21.5% higher in engagement and improved the average number
of correctly answered questions by 490%.

English, Math, and Science were the subject areas in which students were most likely to use
the devices; and online research, mind mapping, and creating presentations where the most
common academic activities undertaken.

The study used surveys to assess the impact of iPad use on motivation, quality of work,
achievement, collaboration, and other factors. Among the findings:

77% of faculty respondents felt that student achievement appeared to have risen
since the introduction of the iPad

73% of students and 67% of staff felt that the iPad helped students improve the
quality of their work

69% of students that completed the survey felt that using the iPad was motivating
and that they worked better with it than without it

60% of faculty thought that students were more motivated by lessons that
incorporate the iPad than those that did not
This evaluation of the effectiveness for an iPads ability to provide an engaging

experience is an important aspect to consider. A students outlook on the learning process

dictates the amount of engagement they have with the topic at hand. Therefore, a more
positive outlook results in increased engagement, and this subsequently results in improved
test scores. The iPad and its supportive applications are helpful in supporting student
engagement in two important ways. The first is that iPad educational applications provide

immediate feedback for correctly and incorrectly answered questions. The immediate
feedback satisfies and reassures students as to how they are currently performing and
overall progression. The second is that the iPad can utilize functions to show students how
to correctly solve incorrect questions. This provides help in some cases where students may
not take the time to ask the teacher how to correctly solve a certain type of problem or
methodically work to a correct conclusion. According to James Basham of the University of
Kansas, Researchers have shown that students tend to choose to engage in assigned work
that results in the presentation of more immediate and higher rates of feedback stimuli that
might reinforce on-task and work completion behavior (Basham, Haydon, Hawkins, Denune,
Kimener & McCoy, 2012).
The successful implementation of the iPad in the teaching environment has already
been documented in classrooms in Chicago. More than twenty Chicago public schools
received iPads to test its reliability in enhancing education and the results, money aside, are
strongly supportive for implementation in all public schools. The feedback from both
students and teachers is overwhelmingly positive and whether its helping special
education students speak to grocery store clerks on field trips, assisting high school physics
students in building roller coasters to understand motion and energy, or conducting daily
formative assessments to improve student performance, the iPad engages students and
according to experts, thats the most rewarding part (Mulholland, 2011). The use of iPads
in Chicago has shown be successful if the initial purchase cost can be made. However, it is
important to note that to ensure the success of the implementation of this program teachers
themselves must first be familiarized with the product and develop a lesson plan tailored to
this new technology.
One of the most useful iPad applications to be utilized in the classroom is a
development by Educreation. Originally released in 2012, this application enables the iPads
to utilize a recordable, interactive whiteboard that captures voice and handwriting to
produce video lessons (PRNewswire 2012). These lessons, which can be created by
teachers or students, can be posted online and shared publicly or with a created classroom
group. This innovative technology allows for students to learn about a subject from their

teacher, peers, and even student across the country. A public announcement reported that
since launching only six months ago, more than 50,000 teachers have created and shared
lessons on the Educreations platform, and its now being used in over 12,000 schools and in
117 countries (PRNewswire 2012). Although this application is extremely useful in the
classroom, there is a potential problem that will need a solution if iPad integration is to be
utilized. The time constraints of the classroom may prove to be a problem if a project will
take more than one class period to complete. Once a project has been saved it cannot be
edited so unless students have their own iPad and can finish the work at home, students
may have to stay after class until the project is completed. This is impractical for students
who utilize the classroom iPads and special arrangements may need to be made to deal with
this issue. However, it should be clear that the educational benefits of this iPad application
bound over the aforementioned inconvenience.

Of course, the mobility provided by the iPad's wireless telephone connection

capability allows the unprecedented access to the Internet anywhere students are. This is
truly information on demand. As questions arise, students can google for clues and insights
to begin their studies. Even more powerfully though, through the iPad phone connection,
students can have access to volumes of primary source documents and data to help in their
investigations in or out of the classroom, on the bus, in a restaurant, or at the football game.
Because iPad's do not have USB ports, disk drives or CDROM/DVD capability, methods for
sharing data with other computers and devices over the Internet or "cloud" have been
developed. Drop box allows students set up a personal account in which they can store iPad
created documents, photos, fieldnotes, etc. And they can access those documents from any
other computer or Internet capable device. Evernote will help students keep track of their
notes and Mendeley will organize their research documents and let them take their research
done on their computers with them, wherever they are going. The Project Gutenburg allows
students to download thousands of classic books to be read on any number of free book
reader apps available. With the HMH Fuse app, students have at their fingertips the entire

Houghton-Mifflin Algebra One book along with exercises and tools for learning algebra.While
walking around the classroom and interacting with students, teachers can control their
computers from their iPad with the Remote Mouse app. With a simple cable, teachers can
use their iPads to present their unique and creative Prezi presentation made on their
computer by using the iPad application called Prezi Player. The teacher can control the
document by simply pinching, twisting and sliding their fingers across the face of the iPad.

Aside from Educreation, there is an incredible number of educational applications to

be used through classroom iPads. Additionally, there is a large demand for this particular
market so an investment in iPad education would be fruitful because of a supply guarantee
for newly developed educational applications. Some of the many iPad applications available
for use are relevant to project-based learning, social media, gamificationscavenger hunts,
news reports, Instagram bulletin boards, podcasts and commercials (Brantley 2013). These
applications enable the iPads to be tailored for specific grade levels, whether reinforcing
second grade math or eleventh grade physics. Although the cost for equipping three
twenty-six-student classrooms with the hardware and educational programs would cost
approximately forty-thousand dollars, costs could be mitigated through sharing of iPads and
taking into account the benefit-cost ratio for an estimate of five years of use. With these
aspects taken into account, seventy-eight students can be equipped at one time at a cost of
one-hundred and three dollars per student per year. These costs are further reduced by
sharing iPads and accounting for the rotational aspect of high school classrooms. The
implementation of an iPad educational program is strongly recommended and the benefit of
its implementation will serve current students throughout their lives.

Works Cited
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