Touch, Type, and Transform: iPads in the Social Studies Classroom

Abstract

Ms. Wei has 15 students in her class, and most started the year as struggling readers. After a few months of school, all but two children have been making noticeable gains. In fact, three students in her class were recently identified as gifted. The two students who continue to perform below grade level expectations are both English Language Learners who arrived with their families from Haiti this past summer. The two young girls are quiet and shy, and Ms. Wei noticed that they tend to isolate themselves from their classmates. Ms. Wei brainstormed ideas to foster engagement of the girls while also enhancing the social studies content in her classroom. Recognizing that every culture has a heritage of challenge, triumph, and perseverance, Ms. Wei hoped that by studying the geography of the Caribbean, students might understand the universality of the human experience, practice communicating across cultural lines, and work together to promote equity. To foster relevant connections to the content, Ms. Wei wanted to facilitate students’ discovery of culturally-based similarities and differences between their lives and the lives of children in Haiti. She recently acquired three iPads for her class, and had already introduced her students to how to use the devices responsibly and navigate their way to apps she selected to align with learning objectives and students’ individual needs. Ms. Wei identified an app that she thought would interest her Haitian students by connecting with their cultural identities while addressing important learning objectives in geography and economics for the class. She selected My Haiti: Valdo, A Child’s Story HD, which is a photo story app introducing children to a young Haitian boy and his life. Through the app, the students could experience how a child in a developing country lived, what his home looked like, the forms of transportation he used, the type of school he attended, and other details of his life. The third graders were excited to be learning about the culture of two of their classmates. The app introduced them to Creole, and the children learned to count to 10 and speak other common phrases, like “I am ... years old” or “Where is the bathroom?” The children’s excitement and engagement grew, and one of the Haitian girls had a big smile on her face the whole time the other students were trying to say the words. Other students kept asking the two girls for help with their pronunciations and translations— propelling them to the role of class experts. The iPad served as a conduit for fostering classroom community building as well as promoting social studies learning goals. Using the iPad, the students in the class made a rapid trajectory from novices to masters of the device and the content. The class would culminate their exploration of the geography of the Caribbean by writing stories that depicted the effects of the 2010 earthquake on the region, using multiple apps to support their creativity, collaboration, and communication. The learning experience facilitated by the iPad captured child voices while Social Education 76(2), pp 88–91 ©2012 National Council for the Social Studies