iPad Program Marks Popular Teaching Effort

11/22/2011 

Local children will learn using iPad tablet technology, thanks to a SUNY Cortland instructor and a group of College students who aspire to become teachers.

“Learning About Technology,” the final program in a semester-long series, takes place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 3, at the Children’s Museum, which is located in the McDonald Building at 60 Tompkins St. in Cortland.

The three-hour session for children is free but donations to the Children’s Museum will be accepted.

Christine “Chris” Widdall, an instructor of childhood/early childhood education at SUNY Cortland, and a group of her students will use iPads to teach a range of subjects that includes mathematics, reading and creative storytelling. Widdall’s college students will create their own “learning stations” with the iPads by selecting two or three computer applications and teaching them to children.

The new teaching tool, which is provided to students by the iPad Lab in the College’s Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department, assures a two-way learning process for both the college students and the schoolchildren.

“The thing that is so empowering this semester is the way my students have immersed themselves to really learn about how technology works,” Widdall said. “There is so much energy around it, and they realize: ‘I can use this, this can make a difference.’”

And she can hardly keep up with the requests for her students to work with local children using iPads. This is the second year Widdall has used mobile technology in her classroom. After attending a few key technology conferences and noticing that many local schools were using small laptop computers and cell phones as word processing devices for fourth and fifth graders, Widdall integrated the progressive technology in her own teaching.

“A lot of schools, especially in the South, were pushing mobile learning,” she said. “I wanted to make sure my students were the most marketable they can be.”

One teacher in a local school district, who Widdall has worked closely with, has been using mobile technology to help a special education student gain confidence in writing. The student uses an application called “Dragon Dictation,” which allows him to dictate his own story to the iPad, which in turn copies it down so the student can then write his own words on paper.

The iPad technology has helped the student build confidence and overcome his fear of writing.

Widdall has greatly stressed to her students the importance of the teacher understanding the technology before being able to teach it. Using and teaching technology just for the sake of teaching will not benefit anyone, she said.

“I want to make sure the students understand technology is a tool to enhance and engage learning,” Widdall said. “But to do that, the teacher must understand the technology.”

The Children’s Museum offers interactive, hands-on educational experiences in an environment where Cortland community parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers, college students, youth and young children can be inspired to play and learn together.

Presented by faculty and students in SUNY Cortland’s Childhood/Early Childhood Education Department, the programs run on selected Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m., unless otherwise noted, and are open to community families and their children.

For more information on the Children’s Museum program, contact Widdall at (607) 753-5528 or Emilie Kudela, the director of the SUNY Cortland Children’s Museum, at (607) 753-5525.