Unit Overview
This website was designed to present my Language Teaching & Technology module that connects specific iPad applications with teaching vocabulary to ESL students using academic content.
The unit - Building Canada - The Creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway, provides an opportunity to infuse technology within a thematic unit designed to increase ESL students academic vocabulary through interactive and personalized lessons and activities by using specifically chosen iPad apps that engage students, while helping them to personalize their learning in a collaborative manner. iPads can be considered the technology piece that "supports students with unique learning needs; to meet the needs of every student, every day in keeping with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles; and to increase student engagement" (Alberta Education, 2012, p. 5).
Collaboration using technology is large part of each lesson. Using word collage apps, graphic organizer apps, videos and brochure creation apps, students journey into the lessons, creating all the necessary tasks on their own, personalized iPad. Thematically, lessons are organized in such a way that builds on previous knowledge that students bring with them about travel, transportation, and connections to others and physical places.
The lessons are sequenced in such a way to add more vocabulary and increase the amount of abstract thinking often associated with social studies curriculum. Ranney (2012) states that "we can agree that academic language generally is associated with complex and abstract ideas, or high cognitive demands, and often has reduced external context such as in reading academic textbooks" (p. 562). Scaffolding the learning using iPads is an important part of this technology module because it provides students with a gradual increase in language/vocabulary that does not overwhelm with apps that assist in the understanding of content. Wang, Teng, and Chen (2015) argue that "many English learners feel confused when they learn vocabulary because there are always new words in the articles" (p. 100).
There are three lessons (2 additional lessons with modifications) that lead to producing the culminating task of creating an informational flyer using the accumulated vocabulary built within each lesson. Along with this assessment piece, students will complete cloze exercises to further help evaluate the effectiveness of using iPad apps for social studies content learning.
The unit - Building Canada - The Creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway, provides an opportunity to infuse technology within a thematic unit designed to increase ESL students academic vocabulary through interactive and personalized lessons and activities by using specifically chosen iPad apps that engage students, while helping them to personalize their learning in a collaborative manner. iPads can be considered the technology piece that "supports students with unique learning needs; to meet the needs of every student, every day in keeping with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles; and to increase student engagement" (Alberta Education, 2012, p. 5).
Collaboration using technology is large part of each lesson. Using word collage apps, graphic organizer apps, videos and brochure creation apps, students journey into the lessons, creating all the necessary tasks on their own, personalized iPad. Thematically, lessons are organized in such a way that builds on previous knowledge that students bring with them about travel, transportation, and connections to others and physical places.
The lessons are sequenced in such a way to add more vocabulary and increase the amount of abstract thinking often associated with social studies curriculum. Ranney (2012) states that "we can agree that academic language generally is associated with complex and abstract ideas, or high cognitive demands, and often has reduced external context such as in reading academic textbooks" (p. 562). Scaffolding the learning using iPads is an important part of this technology module because it provides students with a gradual increase in language/vocabulary that does not overwhelm with apps that assist in the understanding of content. Wang, Teng, and Chen (2015) argue that "many English learners feel confused when they learn vocabulary because there are always new words in the articles" (p. 100).
There are three lessons (2 additional lessons with modifications) that lead to producing the culminating task of creating an informational flyer using the accumulated vocabulary built within each lesson. Along with this assessment piece, students will complete cloze exercises to further help evaluate the effectiveness of using iPad apps for social studies content learning.