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Making Meaning with Children's Book Apps |
One goal of THV’s Summer Institute is to get educators thinking about meaningful ways to integrate technology into the classroom. Sure, we can upload videos from YouTube on every subject imaginable, or let students take a science quiz on Brainpop rather than straight from their textbooks. But how do we use technology to really interact with the curriculum, probe students to question and reason, and promote higher order thinking skills? Technology can be an avenue to all these things, if you use it right.
Sorting through articles to supplement this summer’s workshop material, I came across “Children’s Book Apps: A New World of Learning” on NPR’s Morning Edition (March 28, 2011). As well intentioned as this broadcast was, here is an example of how technology can fall short in the classroom, and at home.
Renee Montagne introduces, “It's 8 o'clock at night. You have a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, a pile of paperwork on your desk and your kids want you to read to them. Guess what? There's an app for that. Okay, not the dishes. But you can download a children's book app to your Smartphone or iPad. Enhanced childre n's e-books include narration, animation and interactive features.”
If you just scroll the comments on NPR’s website, you’ll see a lot of angry listeners responding with valid arguments ranging from the pitfalls of screen time before bedtime to the depersonalization of story time with children, and it’s clear NPR may have missed the mark in opening the discussion of the benefits of children’s book apps by framing it this way.
When listeners hears snippets of what a child’s interaction with the book application could be, we hear the pre-programmed voices instead of the child’s, and moreover we only hear the children following directions (“Can you touch the cat? Good job…. Can you touch the cup? Good job”). The interactions lead us to picture a child sitting alone in bed with an iPad listening to a stranger before bedtime, with no freedom to respond to the color of the cat, no one to discuss the mischief the cat is up to, or no one to relate to how that cat looks like the family cat, Furball.
A few of the listener comments praise the technology, relaying their own young child’s impressive vocabulary and other intellectual benefits. As educators, this may be something to grasp onto—at the same time, something to examine closely. Are the children getting multiple definitions of vocabulary, and putting it in different contexts? Does the interaction they get from the apps encourage them to predict, summarize, or relate the text to their own experiences? Could they have a follow up discussion about the story, or were they just looking at the graphics?
There is a plethora of information on the web about how educators are using technology as vehicles for learning interactively, many intellectually stimulating. Marsha Ratzel uses blogs to teach students how to thoughtfully comment on one another’s work and offer feedback. Education author and journalist Suzie Boss suggests using technology forums to discuss current events with peers around the world. Tech tools like Prezi and Wikis allow students to present their knowledge and collaborate in multi-faceted ways. Can you imagine a children’s book app in the hands of the right educator, demanding the same rigor instead of a way to finish the chores?
When evaluating technology use in the classroom, we have to ask: does the technology serve a meaningful and creative way to share, communicate, use and access the information we want them to know, or is it simply easier?
Photo courtesy of Neeta Lind
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