21st century learning

Quite a few months ago, a friend of ours got an iPad.  My kids picked it up and started playing games on it without any visible learning curve at all; they just knew how to do it.  Tristan learned how to play chess from it in less than an hour, since it would highlight all the possible spaces into which each piece could move, and it didn't let him accidentally break any rules.  There were educational games involving words and physics, and I admit I was sort of wishing we had an iPad, but I wasn't even considering spending that much money on such a thing.  Another friend has one and reported good things as well: the iPad easily taught her son to tell time, no frustration involved.  He just played the game and worked it out.

So, yesterday my husband came home at lunch with a new iPad, unexpectedly.  I set myself loose at the App Store (although "Store" is a little misleading since almost everything I downloaded was free).  Now we're awash in math games, time games, geography games, physics games, and word games.

My kids like looking at maps, and they really like our map of the world jigsaw puzzle.  But the iPad geography games are, hands down, the easiest way to learn where the countries are, what the capitals are, etc.  You can learn the countries of South America and their capitals in about 15 minutes of playing these games.  Even plain old multiplication drills are more fun on the iPad.

I've been thinking about Alfie Kohn's book "No Contest," which says the research is pretty clear regarding competition in the classroom: it's a bad thing.  It inhibits learning, creates anxiety, and (contrary to popular belief) lowers performance.  But yet, when you're competing against your own previous high score or against a timer, or trying to get a certain percentage correct so you can get another token of some sort, that challenge seems very helpful.  You feel motivated to remember which one is Guyana, or to be a little quicker hitting "72" when 6 x 12 flashes up.  The kids are picking up countries and their capitals, landmarks, and state mottos incredibly quickly.  I suppose Kohn would also object to the extrinsic motivation that's inherent in all these games, as that's not supposed to be good for learning either.  But I mean, if you've learned where Uruguay is then you've learned it, at least you have that.  One doesn't need to go on memorizing countries for the rest of one's life.

The intelligent games on the iPad, which is many or most of them, will repeat material to reinforce it, but without getting tedious.  They'll gradually increase the difficulty level, or lower the difficulty if you get several wrong.  They'll provide hints on a schedule that keeps the game from getting frustrating.  One of the geography games seems designed so that you can often guess correctly from the four possible answers by process of elimination or reasoning.

I like sitting on the floor with my kids, opening up books, and just looking at them and chatting.  We do a lot of learning that way, and they have done plenty of math worksheets, and with Tristan I used reading flashcards (many of which I made myself).  But I have to say the iPad apps are pretty amazing learning tools.  Last night I was looking at a star chart app, and when I turned, the stars on the screen moved.  It knows which way you're facing and it shows you what should be in the sky in that direction.  A different app lets you move around the solar system, zooming in close enough to see the city lights on Earth (and the major satellites in their current positions), or zooming all the way out until the Milky Way is a spiral of dust and stars.  And it has animations explaining the relative sizes of celestial objects, the phases of the moon, the seasons, etc.  Maybe I'm an idiot but I didn't realize that the moon rises and sets at the same time as the sun at the new moon, but opposite to the sun at the full moon.  When you see the video it's obvious why that is, but I just hadn't thought about it before.

The Khan Academy website is another excellent use of technology.  It's exploded from a small collection of videos into a site with exercises, videos, and a connected "coach" (or parent) account that lets you look at what your kids were doing or watching on the site, how many minutes they spent, what % of questions they got right, etc.  The guy who does the videos is a natural teacher with a really friendly style and great explanations.  And all of this is free.  We had been using the Aleks online math system (not even close to free) but the Khan thing is superior.

An iPad is a luxury, I realize.  The iPad and the internet are not necessary for learning.  But I know families who don't let their kids use any kind of screens at all or even toys with batteries in them, and I wonder if they really know what they're missing?  Perhaps they should try watching The Secret Life of Birds at a friend's house, or let their kids play Map Quiz or with the solar system app once or twice.  Or maybe they have, and they aren't interested... I'd be interested to know what the argument is against using this new technology.  Myself, I think it's fantastic.

 

Comments

[playmobil games]

I'm glad that this hi-tech things could really be an educational tool for them. This is a good side of using hi-tech things. I hope people would really appreciate it too in the same way.