Having the iTouch in a 4th grade classroom has been a very fun experience. This is mostly because most of these students live in a lower economic area and have only heard about the technology and never experienced it themselves. So to see their excitement was a fun thing to see.
The first student I had use the Touch was a girl who is still unable to tell time on an analog clock. So I had her use the Telling Time app. She was so engrossed with the "game" that she never realized she was learning. This was proven to me after recess when I asked her what time it was. She looked at the clock, hesitated briefly and answered. I gave her a smile and told her she can now tell time! She was excited!
The next child is ELL. She struggles with her math. So I had her use Sum Stacker with the Spanish words. But as she worked on the Spanish I wrote the words in English to show her what it looks like. It was slow going but she eventually caught on. I am not sure this was necessarily a great thing to do with an ELL, but I think she felt included in the math lesson that day so to me it was successful.
The last student I used Pearl Diver. This student had difficulty understanding a number line. With Pearl Diver the student was able to figure out the sum and then place it on the line. The benefit of this was that it was again a "game" that the student thought they were playing, not a math assignment.
Overall,if students think they are playing a game I let them think that then later tied it into learning and helped them to make that connection. It was great!
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