An iPod classroom ?

Even though I feel that I’ am a mix of all the types of learners, visual, auditory and kinesthetic, I probably would learn well using an iPod. Keeping the lectures and seminars in the iPod will be very useful to view when I’m on the go. For instance when I’m taking the bus, instead of listening to music I can watch or listen to the seminars. It would be a great tool as a future reference, as many students tend to forget a few things or key facts that are mentioned in the seminar. For instance I attended a seminar for my grade 10 design course pertaining about recycling around half way through the school year. This December when I was trying to complete a unit for my grade 11 design course I had decided to write about recycling and when I was trying to include a certain key fact I wasn’t able to recollect the exact fact which was a percentage mentioned by my teacher almost a year ago. If I was able to download that seminar into my iPod I could easily figure out that fact which I had forgotten. All the down loadable seminars and lectures would be very useful and helpful during exam time, as they can be seen countless times to review if forgotten.

Of course Mary Ward with its self directed learning should embrace this technology for education. By doing this it will not only truly assist many students but also ruin the education of others. For the students who do very well in Mary Ward and like the self directed system will do great with this new technology. But the students who are always behind and slack off, this technology will devastate and spoil their education, since they’ll use this as another excuse to do the work later. Many students will decide not to go to seminars by saying that they can watch it on the iPod, and then they’ll postpone watching it on the iPod by telling they’ll do it later. By keeping on postponing, they’ll never get their work done. If this technology is used appropriately it will be great tool which we can add to our school.