This concept is certainly not new, but an article I saw earlier this week has prompted me to revisit it.
In 2008 education researchers at The University of Nottingham said they believe it is time that phone bans were reassessed — because mobile phones can be a powerful learning aid. Dr Elizabeth Hartnell-Young and her colleagues reached this conclusion after studying the consequences of allowing pupils in five secondary schools to use either their own mobile phones or the new generation of ‘smartphones’ in lessons.
This week came a news article from Florida which says
In a world where most high schools have adopted a “we see them, we take them” policy on cell phones, Pasco County’s Wiregrass Ranch High School swims upstream. It encourages teachers to allow students to use their phones in classes for educational purposes. Teens routinely use their phones to shoot pictures for projects, calculate math problems, check their teachers’ blogs and even take lecture notes.
According to the principal and the teacher involved, their policy has solved a two-fold problem - that of having to regulate or confiscate mobile phones, and the problem of maintaining student interest.
The principal has even gone so far as to distribute “some recommended classroom uses for cell phones to teachers”.
Here’s an interesting page of resources to check out: Think Mobile Phones for Learning
Here is a short video created by John Travers about using the power of iPhone for learning
I wonder where Australian educational institutions are on the mobile phone issue?
12 Comments
I fought tooth and nail with some other forward-thinking teachers to allow our students to do the same, and it works fairly well. Can’t say the same for personal music devices. Big fail there.
I have had my students photographing science pracs for three or so years now and the only way I can get my foundation maths kids to do any work is because they “inadvertantly” bring a calculator inside their phone. They won’t bring a regular calculator, but they’ll bring their phone!
Nice video - you can say a lot in a minute.
I’ve had Macs for years, an iPod Touch since they came out and just got an iPhone a couple of weeks ago. Even with experience of all the other devices and wifi since day one, I was still amazed at what the iPhone does and how useable it is. I thought the small keyboard would be a problem but its fine, not for a PHD but Ok for communicating and notes. The combination of location aware apps, maps, voice and data communication as demonstrated in the video is quite remarkable.
Lots of great education apps at the app store such as languages and maths and many of them are free.
If we could just get Telstra to get serious about data plans all would be good. $10 for 150Mb is just stupid. $5 per Mb in some plans.
I think that in NSW this is very much a school issue depending on the capabilities of the teacher and the school policies. NICTA did an awesome peice of research at Merrylands High School using iTouches.
I used mobile phones extensively in the classroom (it was a tough choice between 30 students sharing the faculties single 3.2 megapixel old school digital camera or every student in the class using the 5 megapixel camera in the pocket). The intesting thing is the assumption other teacher make about you a as teacher when they walk past your classroom and all student have their phones out (one even complained about my professionalism, becuase studenst where using mobile phones instead of learning, hilarious).
My favourate tricks:
- Plug a open router into the single ethernet connection to your classroom instant internet access for students without data accounts
- Plug an open router into your laptop instant file sharing, download content and upload effort. You can even an LMS of your laptop
- QR codes (bing ‘quickmark’) are a great learning tool to embed urls, text, geo locations etc. Most mobile phones have a QR code reader
- GPS data can be uploaded to a range of mashups such as GarminConnect and google earth
- Bluetooth server send files to every or random mobiles phones direct from your laptop. A facinating qrouping sequencing activity
Ben :-)
Kerrie, I wonder whether the “Animal Farm Syndrome” is not applicable?
Mobile phone pedagogical “potentials” seem to float tantalizingly on the ether of the individual’s “any time, any where, any how” promise of learning …
Most schools (but not all) “ban” the use of mobile phones in the “classroom” (lots of room for definitions here!) for obvious and not so obvious reasons!
Mobile phones are a “disruptive technology” … to some … but by teaching teachers how to integrate interactive media using mobile technologies, students may just learn the necessary skills and behaviours for using mobile phones appropriately in an educational setting … as well as a social one.
Stands to reason, does it not? A course in mobile phone use, integrated into the curriculum?
How many of us took a course? Where’s the syllabus? Cynicism?
Introduced and used constructively (and creatively?) in schools, mobile phones can engage teachers and learners in Student Response Systems, Microblogging, Podcasting, Texting, Phone Cameras, Audio Recording, Emailing and Data-logging, etc. … as well as accessing the web).
“All mobile phones are equal but some are more equal than others … ” … iPhone, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung … Ericcson … Thinking … Operating systems and compatibilities?
“All mobile phone providers were created equal but some are more equal than others …” … Telstra, Vodaphone, Optus … Thinking … Cost of access?
One thing is guaranteed … “All mobile phones were not created equal!”
I was lucky enough to teach in a school that looked pro-actively at their use … it was certainly learn-as-you-go … and “one-size did not fit all” but it did accomplish a unique communication task, in a “novel” and engaging way. How long that “halo” existed is probably open to question … but just watch the students’ faces when you say that they can use their mobile in “this” class!
Do phone us … we will phone you … Phone?
Time will inevitably come when the iPhone becomes syonymous with the teaching and learning just as the PC and laptops are now. It’s only a matter of time before the iPhone will be a standard tool among many students. For those old enough to remember, we saw this happening when the four-figure tables were replaced by the slide rule which was replaced by the calculator/scientific calculator. The issue will be the “social divide” where those who cannot afford a mobile phone, let alone an iPhone may feel isolated (educationally as well as socially). A survey of student ownership of mobile phones might offer some surprises. But again we saw this too with computers; there are still students who do not have a computyer at home.
Smart phones, i think, stand up to their reputation and can be a nice and useful educational instrument. The volume of apps that can be integrated on the phone is impressive
Some interesting comments have been made.
I wonder WHY we need mobile phones in classes? Is this really a skill that needs to be taught now? Why do we need to use something with which kids are already completely cometent in using? Since when did the reason for allowing students to determine what they may or may not do depend on how hard it was to get them to respect the teacher’s instructions and the school’s policies?
I do ask whether we don’t teach enough “technology” already? What about learning to lift our heads out of the electronic ether and relate to other human beings using eye contact and complete setences? Why not allow teachers to teach students other skills that can be taught just as well (and often better) without the use of an electronic device?
Why not allow teachers a chance in trying to care for the safety of their students? We already KNOW there’s a problem with phone and internet bullying and abuse amongst teenagers. Why introduce it as a possibility in the classroom?
I want to make the point that technology is just ONE part of education. Not every student is using their main “intelligence” in being required to use technological tools. If we don’t want a whole generation of kids to come through our schools with the ability to take photos and make a powerpoint presentation, but have nothing of interest to “say” because they have not spent enough time being taught how to think for themselves and to use their own, unique creative imagination outside the parameters of a computer program, then we’d better start reflecting that in showing restraint in how much time and focus is given to using electronics.
Take time to think about it.
Once again, it’s not what you have, it’s how you use it. Mobile phones seem to have enormous potential for learning. It’s just the human factors that get in the way e.g. “Can we trust kids?” “I don’t know enough myself - the kids know far more.”
It seemed to me as a primary teacher that many students were seeing walking into school as a walk back in time. Where many (not all) had access to the tools of the digital generation such as Facebook and mobile phones they were banned in schools. Surely it is naive to believe that banning phones at school will eliminate cuber bullying. Why not have students create podcasts about a topic being studied, bluetooth it to the other students phones and have them take it home for some peer assessment. A conventional mobile can do this. My year five students became highly skilled at providing constructive feedback which was highly valued by the others, much more than any feedback from me.
Kerrie, partly in response to AV, and to answer the legitimate question “Why?” It would be far too easy to answer, trite even to say, “Why not?”
Often the ills of the use of any technology … and there are clearly over-dependent users … are based on the assumption that technology replaces, rather than supplements.
Teaching/learning/thinking “about” technology is different than teaching/learning/thinking “with” and “through” technology. We are rarely comfortable as a society with change than seems to “violate” deeply encultured beliefs.
“One-size will not fit all” and I often think that we as teachers may need to recognise that in our “classrooms” we often “mediate” (as much as technology does!) our students’ quality of thinking in order to meet our own more comfortable perceptions … “standards” … about whatever issue or topic is under discussion or study. Balance is a requirement perhaps, and “iPhones” and other mobile technologies, will all have their place in formal education, whether “we” like it or not. They already do … subversively … in some manner once we ban them!
Remove the idea … and it is only an idea … of the “phone” as a personal, oral communication device from the “iPhone” … Ah! Silence! … and then we have a mobile technology with somewhere in the region of 25+ functions that a Laptop/Desktop has … minus the “talk” bit! Accessible when it is required … by choice or inclination …
“Thinking with technology” is qualitatively different than “thinking through technology”. In either case thinking is … even without “technology” … not an independent process with defined outcomes as in a syllabus, but one mediated by a host of factors.
You may enjoy this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ&feature=player_embedded
It’s interesting, isn’t it Alastair.
I was wondering why iphones were so attractive to students when a laptop has all the telco functionality, and a decent keyboard and screen to boot, and often free. My nephew gave me the answer straight up. “They said NO PHONES.”
Do you think ones of these days we might get back to Sun’s idea that “the network is the computer” (a computer/phone is just a device for tapping in) and get teachers to collaborate, between schools (preferably in different countries), rather than insisting children should “do as I say, not as I do?” As you say on your staff page. “It’s not what you’re taught, it’s what you learn”. And children do. You have seen this one?
As a young teacher in a Sydney high school, it’s interesting to see the Year 9 students with their DER laptops - open, on and collaborating 24/7 - while they (and their peers) are still not allowed to use mobile phones/mp3 players/portable gaming devices anywhere within the school.
It’s frustrating also to be told by the school that under no circumstances are we allowed to let students use their own technology within the classroom, due to the school’s technology policy. Shouldn’t we be teaching students how to use technology responsibly and appropriately, rather than treating all new technology (aside from that sanctioned by the Government) as a dangerous threat?
Technology, when used responsibly and creatively, can open so many doors and really engage students, especially when they are discovering new ways to utilise tools and gadgets they already possess.
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