Win!

I won something in a “drawing” last month on Twitter.

It was an eInstruction Mobi. I would definitely like to thank the people at eInstruction that came up with the contest for their generosity. My class had a lot of great ideas on how we could best use the Mobi Tablet, but then we decided not to keep it.

Why? Well, when I won it, I mentioned it to another teacher during a district technology meeting. He teaches in a special needs preschool classroom in our district. He asked where I had won it because he was trying to find a way to get a Mobi for one of his students. They had one on loan for awhile, but had to return it.

He told me a little bit about the student that had used the loaner. She has cerebral palsy and was unable to write on their DualBoard, but was able to participate more in class using the Mobi. I thought it might be a good idea to share the Mobi with his class; we would keep it for a month, then give it to them for a month. I brought that idea to my students.

We talked in class about the situation and a little bit about CP.  Then they wrote their opinion in a short writing assignment.

They decided we should not share it. (Make sure you read the next paragraph. Don’t stop here!)

We have quite a bit of technology in our classroom, and we wouldn’t miss what we didn’t have. They thought we should give the Mobi to the student with cerebral palsy. It would be better used there than in our class.

I’ll be honest, I was a little bit conflicted. I thought of all the neat things we could use it for in our classroom and I was worried about giving the technology to someone I didn’t know. I didn’t know if they would want to use it, if they would have the ability for their child to use it at home, or if it would be used to it’s full potential.

Then I serendipitously met a little bumblebee and her family at a Halloween party in the same neighborhood as our school. All of my concerns “flew away” quickly. I guess I should have listened to my students to begin with! I was quickly in full agreement as to what we should do with the Mobi.

The Mobi arrived this week. We decided to give it to the family instead of the classroom. She can use it at school, at home, and will be able to continue to use it in other classrooms as she ages.

Her teacher did mention making a video of her using the Mobi in their classroom for my students. I’ll definitely take him up on that. I’ll see if I can get permission from her teacher and family to share that video here in the future.

So, this isn’t really about our classroom content like most of our blog posts, but I wanted to brag about my students!