By Lisa
When considering how beneficial iPads could be in the classroom, I can say that I think it would be great to be able to use them with students since students tend to be more attentive when they get to use the newest types of equipment in technology. However, to ensure that the students are using the iPads appropriately, the teacher must make sure the iPads have appropriate apps installed on them. For my case, the apps that I would need for my classroom must be math related. For example, a few of the apps that my students would need on their iPads for my classes would include scientific calculators, graphing calculators, math formula sheets, and unit converters. In addition to the apps just mentioned, Apple provides a wide selection of free apps that are very educational and beneficial in the classroom as well. With this in mind, there are also some paid apps that can be very beneficial to the educational process also.
The app that I have found to like the best at this point is an app called Allen TestBank Questions. Once it is installed on the iPad, its icon is labeled as Allen Math Guru. This app is a paid app, but it is great for teachers who want to get their students ready for their state’s tests. This app was created to align with the WASL test for the state of Washington, which means that the question quality is great for prepping students for current and future state exams.
The main reasons that I like this app are because it contains 1,521 questions that cover more than 50 math topics/subjects and can be used offline without Wi-Fi access. The main use of this app is for testing or test prepping, which is great because a teacher can load the app on a classroom set of iPads and have the students testing on the same or different types of questions all at the same time to help meet each student’s mathematical needs. In addition, this app records the scores and keeps them until the teacher resets them back to zero to be used by the next class. This means, that when students get low scores on their tests, they can’t just close the app and think that their score will disappear. Also, when low scores do happen, the teacher has the option of having the student retake the entire test, or retake only the missed questions. Another great feature of this app is that when a student does miss a question, it provides the student with an explanation of what they did wrong and how they can solve a problem like this next time. This specific type of feedback that is provided for the students is great because it can help clear-up any misconceptions that they may have and help them achieve higher scores when they do take a state exam.
In conclusion, I believe that using an iPad with this specific app in a classroom setting would be great because it allows the students to have a more individualized learning and testing experience.