"Intellectual distinction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for election to a Rhodes Scholarship. Selection committees are charged to seek excellence in qualities of mind and in qualities of person which, in combination, offer the promise of effective service to the world in the decades ahead. The Rhodes Scholarships, in short, are investments in individuals rather than in project proposals..."

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

One Room SchoolhouseTo Go!

+ McGuffey Readers (along with millions of free titles) + iBooks + Kindle Reader for the iPad/iPhone + iTunes U + a digital media library (on a 500Gb portable drive)+ Apps for Education (like Khan Academy, Dragon Box, Math Ninja) + iCloud = One Room Schoolhouse To Go!

This year we are embarking on an experiment.  I bought the three older kids Generation 2 iPod Touches for less than $85 each.  After futzing with the settings, restrictions, iTunes, loading up the digital medial library and loading apps, I have the 9th, 8th and 4th graders ready to do much of their school on a mobile device.  That means we can all be more portable.   That makes the kids happy.  I will have to "let go" a little, but we will be doing lots and lots of discussions around how it is working .  We started with a few things this summer to see how the kids take to it (duh, they love it) and how I feel about them holding a device in front of their face more than I'm accustomed.

Here's a partial list of what they are doing on the iPod Touch:
Latin for the older kids will still be old-school, low tech (ha ha) via Skype with support from the interactive CD we use to support or curriculum.  The 4th Grader will finish book two of Minimus (with the audio on her iPod).

My older kids are doing Calligraphy this year along with Art History.  Yes, there is an app for both.  My 4th Grader will be watching the Leonard Bernstein "Young People's Concerts" with others and discussing them via Skype.  Her art will be working with different media (chalk, pastels, colored pencils, charcoal, and paint.)

Just an aside:  When I configured the iPods, I enable a screen lock to protect the iPods from the 5 and under crowd :-), enable Restrictions.  I turn off Safari, YouTube, Ping and Deleting Apps.  I also set the age restrictions for Apps, Video and TV.  I disable wireless as a battery saving technique.

I'd love to hear of apps you LOVE as well as techie things you are doing in your homeschool this year.



3 comments:

just_hannah_p said...

Ooooooh! I am looking forward to hearing about this as you get it implemented. We've done so much more on the Kindle and with internet resources this spring, and I've loved how cheap and flexible it is. Are you running Dragonbox on your iPad? My son has a gen 2 ipod touch, and it won't run Dragonbox...

just_hannah_p said...

Ooooh! I'm looking forward to hearing the details of how you tweak this system. I did so much more with the Kindle and internet resources this spring, and I loved, simply loved, how flexible (and cheap) it was. Are you running Dragonbox on your ipad or the ipod touch? My son has a 2nd gen touch and we can't get it to run our Dragonbox app...

The Road Scholar said...

I'm so sorry, I missed commenting back on this!

No, unfortunately Dragonbox is not working on the iPod Gen 2, so I will update that. It's because it cannot run ios 5.x. We have it on the iPads and I have to tell the kids to stop, they've been using it so much.