This week part of the reading was looking
at Wikis, RSS, Social Web, Flickr, and Video Media. With all of the new technology in the world
the one piece of technology that Richardson does not talk about is the cell
phone. This week as a grade level team
my co-workers and I had talked about the number of cell phones that have been
going off in class; thus the number of cell phones we have taking.
The flip side is in a way we are telling
our students to use cell phones. As a
6th grade team six out of eleven of us use Edmondo with our students. One of the things we tell our students is to
download the Edmondo app to their cell phones and/or iPads. The twist is that we are still yelling at
students when they use the Edmondo app to complete an assignment while they are
still in school.
Friday I was talking with the sixth grade administrator. We are both just waiting to the time when students are allowed to use
their cell phones in school. This not
only opens the door to using more apps
in school, but using Social Media Web and other Web 2.0 medias.
Hi Christina,
ReplyDeleteYou pose an interesting question: When will cell phones be allowed in school? Some districts allow this as cell phone use is integrated in the lesson. We all know what the major concerns would be-- texting, face-time, viewing other content, going to non-school related sites, etc. The list could go on, but I wonder if a firewall already exits that could block out these features the same way that the system's firewall already does this. The one component (just from the top of my head) that could be hard to get around would be texting, but if certain cars and phone companies contain firewalls that keep people from texting and driving, I'm pretty sure the technology exists to keep students from being able to use certain features of their cell phones in school. The money needs to be invested; cell phones would probably be used in school the same way that tablets are used now. I don't think this is something that the school system should avoid, but rather, could look in to how to make this a practical idea that works.
Christina,
ReplyDeleteWe do not have a major problem with cell phones going off in class. I guess by 8th grade students have learned that their phones will get taken away so its better not to use a cell phone in class.
Two weeks ago at my English department meeting our department head asked us to bring our cell phones. She showed us a website that could be used as part of a lesson. The site is called Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere and easily allows you to create a poll. Students use their cell phones to participate in the poll by texting an answer choice to the code provided on the website. The poll results are instantly displayed on the website which can be shown on the interactive white board. At the meeting all of us had concerns about inappropriate use of cell phones during such an activity and some students not wanting to use up their text messaging on a school task.
Natalie
Thanks for reminding me of Poll Everywhere. I will use it sometime this term!
ReplyDeleteNo problem! Glad that my English department content specialist shared it with us. We were told to bring our cell phones to this particular department meeting so we could practice voting from our phones using a question from the Poll Everywhere site and of course this is the only day in two and a half years of teaching that I forget my cellphone at home.
ReplyDelete