History was made at Howard School of Academics and Technology on Friday, April 30, as ninth grade English teacher Ashley Wilbur became the first in the state to push out mobile content to her ninth grade English students.
Ms. Wilbur is working in partnership with Emantras and Hamilton County Virtual School to pilot the use of MOBL21, an application that allows teachers to deliver study guides, quizzes, flash cards, video and audio content to students via Apple web-enabled mobile devices or any computer.
Ms. Wilbur said her first interest in using the iPod Touches was sparked when she realized that her students had the same English texts they had used the previous year. Only the cover of the book, she said, was a different color.
“I told them to close the books,” Ms. Wilbur said, “and began to look for ways to engage the students with the iPods. It was difficult to find content and know just how to get it to students in the beginning, however.”
MOBL21 provides a framework within which content can be easily created by students or teachers. “I have created study guides for students to use to prepare for the English 9 End of Course state exam,” said Ms. Wilbur, “putting some ‘wow’ into what might otherwise be a difficult and boring task for the students.”
“Today’s students carry the web in their pocket,” said HCVS Coordinator Debi Crabtree, “and it is crazy not to utilize such an opportunity to push out short quizzes that can be used for formative assessments, flash cards to reinforce the major concepts of a unit of study, or guides that can be accessed anywhere, anytime to help students prepare for a test or project.”
Emantras has made this opportunity available to all teachers in the district and Ms. Crabtree expects to utilize it to support the online learning of students in the district’s virtual summer school program.