EDU 697 Week 1 Discussion

Step 1: Research
Summarize the article in one paragraph, including an overview of the topic, key concepts, findings and recommendations. Include the APA formatted reference information.

The peer-reviewed journal I found through the ERIC database was all about incorporating the iPad into the classroom to promote literacy and enhance students’ academic experience. Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) made the important point in this article that digital technology should be used to enhance academic goals and support students’ learning. This study focused on a fourth grade teacher who was exploring the use of iPads in her classroom in order to help teach print-based literacy skills. The study found that the iPads offered great applications and strategies for the students such as digital, interactive books, which allowed for differentiation and individual support for the learners. Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) explained that digital, interactive books using the iPad, required students to understand new literacies, but provided them with great affordances. These affordances or advantages included supporting individual readers’ text comprehension and possibly engaging struggling readers. Other applications used through the iPad to help teach literacy that were explained in this article were Doodle Buddy and Popplet. Both applications received positive feedback from the students and helped with their comprehension skills. Some of the advantages found regarding these apps were that students were not confined to a specific layout, they did not limit students like a worksheet may have, they helped with visualizing, encouraged rereading of the text, and allowed for digital literacy skills to be learned. One recommendation from Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) was to carefully consider when to incorporate the iPads into instruction and student activities to ensure that they are enhancing the learning experience, rather than simply acting as an “add-on” to the lesson.

In a second paragraph, using an example from your profession or another educational environment, what insights or ideas from your peer reviewed article can guide the use of technology to support learner achievement?

I really enjoyed reading this article, and felt I connected with the points made by the authors and the findings of the study. I absolutely agree with the main points made by Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) that digital technology should be incorporated into the classroom to enhance academic goals and promote student learning. I will continuously remind myself of this point made by the authors as I strive to integrate technology into my classroom on a more regular basis. I think this will be helpful for me professionally because in my district, and especially at my school, there has been such a push to incorporate more technology because the community wants to “keep up” with what’s new in education. I think with such a push coming from the district and our parent community, it can be easy to simply “throw” technology into a lesson just for the sake of it, but this is obviously not beneficial for the students. As mentioned in the article, I will carefully considered when to incorporate the iPad into my instruction and student activities, by researching applications and strategies that will address specific academic goals set forth by the lesson. As proved in this article there are many wonderful benefits offered by the integration of iPads in the classroom, and in order for my students to reap those benefits, I will always consider whether the applications and strategies I would like to incorporate are meaningful and truly allow for my students’ academic experience to be enhanced.

Reference:

Hutchison, A, Beschorner, B, & Schmidt-Crawford, D. (2012). Exploring the use of the

iPad for literacy learning. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=47fabfb4-a413-4423-a1a8-35bf52dd17e1%40sessionmgr198&vid=6&hid=128.