Fun With Technology Integration in Schools

The speaker, Liz Kolb talked about “Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”:  She said that a very high percentage of middle and high school students own cell phones.  Instead of considering these as a distraction device, she wants us; the teachers to turn them into a knowledge construction tool.   The speaker shared several project ideas to connect cell phones and classroom curricula, and the future of cell phones in learning situations.  She used Web 2.0 resources to create mobile learning opportunities for the students.  A few of her projects are:

Audio Recording (using Gabcast.com), free conferencing (using freeconferencepro.com), creating private voice mail box (teachers setting up a private voice mail box to share with the parents and students), mobile note taking (the students can take notes on the go during their field trips), cell podcasting (the recorded material can be converted into mp3s and can be podcasted), radio feeder (the radio programs can be downloaded to revisit – ESOL kids), photo blogging, (once the students create a photo blog, they can take pictures from their cell phones and post them instantly on their blogs to share with their friends), slide shows (slide shows can be created from using a cell which can be shared with classmates), video taping (the students can video tape their favorite presentations and use tools like Youtube, Ispot and jumpcut to edit and post on the web to share with others), data collection (in science they can take pictures of rocks and write about it on the go and compile their data after retuning to the class room), audio interviews (the students can tape their interviews and take pictures of the person they are interviewing and use for their presentations), digital story telling (students can take pictures and use bubbleshare.com and tape the audio and make into digital photo story), ring tone reminders (different ring tones related to the topic they are studying in the class can be created to remind a test etc), and using GPS (navigation system on the cell phones can be used during geography classes and in drivers Ed).        

Comments:  The speaker sounded very excited and genuine while sharing her great ideas about using cell phones in the class rooms.  In a perfect world all these projects sound great.  I agree that the cell phones can be used in many ways to enhance teaching in the classrooms.  However, once we let the students use them in the classes there is a great chance of losing control over the class.  It becomes very difficult to monitor.  Our students being digital natives know more about the cell phones than the teachers, which puts the teachers in the gray area. Besides, each phone has its own set of features which makes the teacher’s life more difficult.  What if there is no service at the time and place where the students need to use their cell phones?  Most of the web 2.0 tools she talked about require accounts to be created by the users.  In this case the students are required to give their personal information like their names, cell numbers and email addresses which is bait for the internet predators.  We still can use some of her ideas like audio recording and the use Audacity to edit and share in the class. 

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