Trapped by an App

Objective:  Students will improve their reading comprehension by using context clues while reading and by using digital tools such as the Dictionary app.

I used the app Miss Spider's Tea Party to have students work on using context clues to determine word meaning.  In their pairs students listened to the book being read as they read along.  Before I gave students instructions, I handed them a list of words which I thought they might have trouble with in the story.  They were instructed to put a check mark in the column that best fit for their knowledge of the word:  Can Define, Recognize, Don't Recognize.  In addition there was another column for Other Words.  Afterwards they were told they could watch an animation of the book being read to see if that helped them to understand the words better.

I also instructed the students in how to use the Dictionary app to look up words by typing them or speaking them; how to listen to the words pronounced; and how to create a Favorites List of words.

All in all this was a bit of a frustrating lesson for me.  I had planned on using a different app, The Unwanted Guest, but when I watched it through and listed all the vocabulary words my students would need help with, it was just not feasible to use it.  I listed over four pages of vocabulary words my students probably wouldn't be familiar with. So then I searched until I found Miss Spider's Tea Party, read it and came up with only one page of vocabulary words (still too many, but usable).  The first major problem I ran into came when I downloaded the free app and got caught in its web.  With no warning or indication that it would happen, the app downloaded along with about 13 other unwanted game apps and advertising apps.  Since the iPads are linked to the same account, I then had to go into each iPad and delete all the superfluous apps.  What a sticky web was weaved for me. You can see why I'm not hyper linking the app on this blog; I don't want anyone else falling into the trap.

Correction:  I found out later that the reason the unwanted apps appeared was that my principal had downloaded the apps to his iPad which is linked to the same account as the student iPads.  His iPad has since been unlinked.  Lesson learned.