Last weekend I had the opportunity, with fellow UNITE (Urban Needs in Teacher Education) members, to test out Leapfrog's with kindergartners for the first time at a school in Chicago.
Before the classes arrived, we were helping set up; plugging every cord into the correct spot, attaching headphones to each leapfrog, and inserting the books into the pads. Setting up was going pretty smoothly until we inserting the books into the pads and tried to test them out! For some reason, the books and the cartridges were not matching up correctly. The Leapfrog would play but it would be reading a completely different book. The clock was ticking and we only had about ten minutes to think of a back-up plan. I started to think, "This is what we call a technological inconvience." Luckily, we found back-up books that worked!
I was a little apprehensive on how well the kindergarteners would handle the Leapfrogs. The first class that came in was automatically excited about the neat headphones they would get to wear (they were big and colorful). They were also very eager to learn how to use the Leapfrog. After showing the students once or twice how to use the Leapfrog, they were all tapping the pages with the pens and turning the pages! One boy looked up at me and said, "This is cool!" Except he could not hear how loud he was because of his headphones, so it sounded more like, "THIS IS SO COOL!!!!!" Other than that, the children were completely silent! At one point, the teacher walked in and said, "I should get my video camera! They're so quiet!"
Overall, it was a huge success and I'm glad that I was able to be a part of the experience and I hope they continue to use the Leapfrogs.
After every UNITE experience, we have a "reflect and collect" where we draw a picture or write about something new we learned or thought was great. For my reflection, I drew a picture of a Leapfrog and wrote, "Technology= Engaging Students= Happy Students."
I think that it is very cool that you are involved in something like this. It is very cool to expierience how much technology can enhance a classroom. We spend so much time talking about whether or not we think technology is a good idea to use in the classroom. I feel the only way to really know the true anwer to this question is to be there and witness it like you have!
ReplyDeleteThat is so exciting that you got to experience technology not only being implemented in the classroom, but students being excited about it as well! I feel as though its important for educators as well as future educators to see students get excited about their learning and understand how motivated (and silent!) they get when learning is 'fun' and different. If everyone got to experience what you did, then I feel as though technology would be more accepted and implemented more frequently as a means of engagement and learning for all students.
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