IXL

Week of February 15^th- February 19^th

This week’s app was called IXL. “IXL is an immersive K-12 learning experience that provides comprehensive, standards-aligned content for math, language arts, science, and social studies,” according to their website. It offers learning experiences for students from grades Pre-K to twelfth grade. IXL can be completed online or on their app. During student teaching, my students had worked on this program and seemed to like it, so I thought I would give it a try with my third graders this year. I seemed to get mixed results about this app. One student stated, “I like it but I can only practice a little. They ask too many of the same questions.” The way the app works is, in a way, like a game. You have to answer a certain number correct before you have successfully mastered the concept. This seemed to frustrate some of my students. 

For this app, I used it during I & E time. I & E time stands for interventions and enrichment. Since a lot of the topics covered on this app are ones that most of my students should know, I felt that this was the best time and best way to integrate this app into their daily schedule. This app can help the students to review old topics and work on new ones. 

Overall, I think the app was a miss with my third graders. When the students were given the survey, they responded with an average score of 2.73 for how much they liked- or didn’t like the app. Ten students said that the app made them want to read more and twelve students said that is did not make them want to read more. For the third question, the students were once again asked to what degree the app motivated them to read more. The students produced an average score of 2.77, which was also on the lower side. I asked one of my students why they thought that this app did not motivate them to read more and he replied, “It’s boring and no fun. It’s like a test!” To be honest, I think that most of the students saw this app in this way. For the fourth question, the app received an average score of 2. 86 on not changing the students’ perspective of themselves as readers. They felt that the app barely changed them into making them feel like better readers. Lastly, twelve students said they would use the app again and ten said they would not. From the results of this data, I truly believe this app received mixed reviews from my students.  

There were a few positives with IXL. The first part of the app that I liked as a teacher was that the app reviewed all the topics that third graders learn throughout the year regarding language arts. It looked at reading through a grammar perspective. I think IXL is a great app to use to review with the students. In retrospect, I don’t think it is a great app to build confidence in reading with. My students seemed to like that it gave them goals of how many questions that they had to answer to be considered proficient in that topic area. Also the questions had a feature where you could highlight and write all over the iPad which helped a few of my students.

IXL seemed to have more negatives than positives if you talked to my students. First, in my opinion, I would not consider this a “reading app.” It did not test them in fluency or give them questions to check their comprehension. IXL was very grammar based and to a lot of my students was like a test. They kept asking me if this was for a grade which I did not like. I also did not like how the app has a limited time. After answering a certain amount of questions, it logs you out and says that you have reached your daily practice limit. This was frustrating, especially for the students who liked the app and could benefit from reviewing these grammar topics.

Next time, I have decided that I am going to play around with the app a little more than I did with IXL. I decided that IXL should not have even been considered a reading app and if I would have looked more carefully, I might have been able to notice it before using it with my students. Also having apps that are similar to quizzes or tests will not help to increase my students’ desire or motivation to read. I need to be more careful next week before choosing my app to introduce to my students.