Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ipod, Therefore Ilearn: The Quia Connection
Ipod, Therefore Ilearn: The Quia Connection
Ipod, Therefore Ilearn: The Quia Connection
FALL 2009
21st Century !
t To p ic : M u si c While Working
•Ho
Flip Cams
•Tech Tools:
The QUIA
Photo by Tamara Bellah
Connection
Teachers all over the world are able to
One fad that won’t be fading anytime soon is the use of MP3 players and share custom activities catered to
iPods. According to the October 2009 Apple press release, over 10 million individual lessons in any content area on
iPods were sold in the fiscal fourth quarter alone. Many of these were to the comprehensive website
our students and their families. The issue is that school districts are hesitant http://www.quia.com.
to allow students to use their iPods at school or in class because they Quia offers educators the ability to
cannot control the content. Our challenge as educators is to create develop sixteen different activities and
innovative ways to integrate iPod technology in an educational way. By games to add new life to the same old
banning iPod and MP3 technology in schools, we are providing our lessons. Students may play
millennial students a disservice. As an eighth grade (continued on page 3) hangman, word jumble,
concentration, and word
search, to name a few.
Marketing to Millennials: Education Teachers easily upload a
One challenge facing educators today is the fact that the generation vocabulary list, click “create,” and voila!
of students populating our schools consists of “Millennials,” those people Instant games for students to play to
born in 1982 or later. We will explore many of the issues facing study, memorize, or apply terms.
educators as a result of the generation gap in this edition. Find out Teachers can also use the “Quizzes”
about new tools to provide interactive, technology-based learning in function to create (continued on page 3)
your classroom to increase “millennial motivation.”
Page 2
YES: Students should be allowed to NO: Students should not be allowed SOMETIMES: I believe there is a
listen to their own music on their to listen to their MP3 players while time and place for music and iPods in
MP3 players while they work completing assignments in class. the classroom. When I am reading
independently in class. Because this Because many of the problems involve aloud to my class or we are doing
generation of children is growing up complicated steps and processes, group activities, earbuds are off-limits.
in homes full of technology, they students need to maintain However, if my students are writing
have trained their brains to do concentration on their work. Music is essays, taking tests, or otherwise
several things at once. They are not a distraction, and student work does working independently, I don’t mind
adapted to quiet rooms without suffer as a result of iPods and MP3 them listening to their own music.
background noise. Many of my players in class. I agree that there is a This is a different generation of kids,
students work with their earbuds in, time and place for iPods, however, and if the music helps them
feet tapping, and do great work. during independent work, that concentrate, inspires them, or keeps
We should adapt to their learning technology is unacceptable. them focused, it’s fine by me.
styles!
Samantha Lee, Dustin Dodgin, Kinsey Burrus,
Reading Teacher Math Teacher English Teacher