Today’s guest post comes from Catherine Hainstock of Vermont Secondary College.
The e5 Instructional Model was recently introduced in Victoria and Vermont Secondary College has been trialling it for the past 12 months. We are also on the first phase of a 1:1 iPad program beginning with Year 7 in 2013. As one of the Teacher Librarians I am keen to evaluate and recommend resources of any sort to support quality teaching and learning so last year I began reading blogs about apps for education. I listened to individual recommendations then downloaded and trialled apps but only passed on a handful to specific teachers. I started questioning the quality of educational apps available (most were gimmicks, games or had limited use). Were we expecting too much too soon? I decided to take a different approach. My question became – how could I support teachers to implement the e5 Instructional Model via the iPad Program? Was it possible to find quality apps suitable for each of the facets of e5? As I re-examined e5 and trialled more apps, I had several objectives in mind:- to find apps that could be useful across Learning Areas (not always possible)
- to choose apps that could support both teachers and students
- to keep costs minimal
- to check the terms and conditions (especially with regard to age restrictions and ownership of uploaded work)
While trialling apps I found that:
- many suited more than one facet of e5
- many suitable high quality apps are not listed in the education section of the iTunes Store
- the apps I found suitable for the Engage facet of e5 tend to be subject specific so I continue to sample across the learning areas
To find out more about Catherine’s work or give her feedback about the app chart, head over to her fantastic blog TL Under Construction.