During the past school year, I had the opportunity to work with grade 8 students for the first time in my teaching career. I worked with these students as a regular classroom teacher for Healthy Living 8, and also as a program support teacher for specific students within their other classes. Amongst this group of grade 8 students, there was a student diagnosed with ADHD. This student did not have a diagnosed learning disability. However, as a result of being ADHD, he had a difficult time functioning productively in the regular classroom setting. In developing his behavioural plan, it was recognized that his inappropriate behaviours within the classroom were related to his needs to socialize and seek movement. Specific times in that were more trying for him to focus during class was in instances of whole-class discussion, extended periods of time sitting, when assigned independent tasks, writing notes and less structured group work. During the team meetings, teachers also highlighted the fact this student was able to focus better when using technology, regardless of the activity that was occurring in class. As such, my goal is to find three appropriate ipod applications that will help this student to stay focused during class time, particularly during times when he finds it more difficult to exhibit appropriate classroom behaviour that is conducive to his learning and that of his classmates.
The first application that I downloaded was Notemaster Lite. Notemaster Lite is similar to the Notes application, in that the purpose is to use the application to take notes. From my understanding, the main difference between the two programs is that Notemaster Lite has additional organizational features. For example, Notemaster Lite allows the student to create folders for his/her various classes, add images to his/her work, be able to find a particular set of notes through a text-search feature, add section headers, and create password protection for notes. I thought that this was an appropriate program for the student described for a number of reasons. This student is more engaged during writing activities when he is using a form of technology, and though there are computers in the classroom, it would be less isolating for him to be able to participate in writing activities using Notemaster Lite. I also like the organizational features offered by the program, and feel that with initial support in setting up his folders, this student would be able to independently keep his work organized through the use of this program. Currently, he often arrives to class without the necessary supplies, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he would be sure to have the ipod touch with him at all times.
In relation to this student’s need for organizational support, I also downloaded the application My Schedule Lite. The primary purpose of this program is to help students keep track of their timetable. For various reasons, our school functions on an 8-day cycle. Some students do not have any difficulty following an eight-day schedule. However, the student of focus for this assignment has major difficulty keeping track of his class schedule. This causes him to be late for classes, in addition to not having assignments passed in on the day that they are due. Features of My Schedule Lite that will be beneficial for this student are the ability to organize tasks by color (a large focus of brain-based learning), add notes to tasks that need to be completed, in addition to keeping track of assigned tasks themselves, and the ability of the program to differentiate between past, present, and future tasks. This feature would allow the student to see both past due and upcoming assignments.
The last program that I downloaded to support this student is iZen Garden 2 Lite. This application is designed to “give you the peace and tranquility of a Japanese Zen garden in your pocket, without the sandy mess”. Within the program, the user can adjust the position of the rocks and rake the sand while listening to soothing meditative music. This may seem like a strange application to download for this student. However, within his behavioural program plan, the student receives a time-out from the classroom if he receives five warnings for inappropriate behaviour that is disruptive to the class. During the time-out session, he is walked to the office by administration to a quiet room without social interaction for 10 minutes. Because it is often social interaction that the student is seeking through his inappropriate behaviour, he finds this 10-minute time-out very difficult to endure, and as such, often “loses it” before the 10-minutes is complete (thereby getting into more trouble with administration). A relaxation tool like iZen Garden 2 Lite may aid in helping the student to remain calm while reflecting on this actions during the 10-minute time frame.
This was a very engaging activity, and I am inspired by the many ipod applications that can be used for educational purposes. I will definitely be "marketing" the ipod touch within my school next year.
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