Mobile Technology

Classroom 2.0

Here's the comment I posted on Classroom 2.0.  It was in reply to a discussion about getting around cell phone rules in the classroom.  I understand why schools ban cell phones, but I don't agree with the practice.  It seems backwards to me to try to stop these things.

Poll everywhere

This was actually a really cool experience.  It was neat to see the votes come in live.  I also learned a little about writing a poll: don't give too many options, especially if your audience is limited.

Experience

Different tools

While I liked the experience with polling, I can't see a really great way to apply it to my situation of one on one teaching.  It was a struggle to get the 10 responses I got in the poll.
I looked into flash drives as well, but I kind of think they're obsolete these days.  They're easy to lose, and they're static.  Why carry around something when you can store your files in the cloud and access them on any number of devices?
I also have trouble seeing a good way of using straight audio tools like podcasts and mp3 files for mathematics instruction.  It's very difficult to do anything useful in math without some kind of visual.
Ipods, Ipads, e-readers, smartphones, etc. are all great tools, but I don't really look at them as anything more than access to the internet, and I probably wouldn't consider producing any material specific to a device.  It's all about software and access for me.

My thoughts on integration

I just started a new project with one of my students.  He is really interested in economics, and since he's a freshman, he can't take the school's economics class yet.  We did some research, and found a free microeconomics course that he could work through on his own online.  The course comes from Saylor.org, and seems to be put together pretty well.  He's going to try to do most of it on his phone, using voice apps to write papers, text-to-voice apps to read him the material, and the web to watch the videos.  I'm excited to see how this works for him, and I hope to encourage more of my students to find self-directed ways to study things that they're interested in.
For me, and for my environment, this is what mobile devices are all about: finding ways to meet the needs of diverse students.  Mobile devices are all about opening up the world of information to anyone with a device and a connection anytime and anywhere.  I will continue to help my students figure out how to do what they want to do and do better what they need to do using mobile technology.

Challenges, inspirations, predictions

I think mobile devices are going to keep getting more and more ingrained in our everyday lives.  In a few years, it is going to seem ridiculous that schools tried to keep them out of the classroom.  Actually, it's probably going to seem ridiculous that we all carried around these bricks to keep connected (Google Glass, anyone?).  Again, it's not the device that's important to me, it's the access to information.  The main challenge, I think, will be keeping the infrastructure robust enough to deal with the ever growing amount of information that is flying around out there.