Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Display Student's Thoughts & Ideas with Cell Phones & Wiffiti

Wiffiti (http://wiffiti.com) allows students to submit a text message to an online bulletin board. Messages can also be submitted to Poll Everywhere, but the Wiffiti board is large and animated and students love the fake names it assigns to their posts. This easy-to-use tool enables your students to use the same technology that is viewed by thousands at large-scale events such as concerts, gallery openings, fundraisers, inauguration events, and political conventions. It is also used extensively in digital signage networks ranging from huge jumbotrons in places like Times Square to thousands of screens in cafes, entertainment centers and even churches.

You can try it out for yourself here by texting in ideas for using cell phones to learn.


Wiffiti allows you to bring this exciting technology to any student with access to text messaging for free. In short Wiffiti publishes real time messages to screens anywhere on any screen and this can be a tremendously powerful educational tool.

Ideas for Using Wiffiti with Students

1) Have students share their ideas regarding an acceptable use policy.
2) Have students share hypothesis about a subject the class is studying.
3) At the conclusion of a unit, have students share what they have learned.
4) Have weekly shout outs to recognize student achievement.

Here's How to Get Started

  • Students don't need to sign in. They just text their answer to the Wiffiti code you share with them.
  • Teachers can simply sign in by clicking "Log in with Facebook" or setting up an account with a username, email, and password.
  • Once signed in select, "Make a Screen" (http://wiffiti.com/screens/make)
  • Give your screen a Title and select publish.
  • You will be given a url and text that users can use to contribute to your screen.

6 comments:

  1. I had heard about Wifitti. I will have to keep it in mind whenever or if our schools allow cell phones. Seems like a great tool! Thanks for sharing

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  2. @Zimmer557, don't wait until your school allows cell phones. Let students use this in their homework. They will love it and when they enter the class with their thoughts projected you'll be able to get right to some great discussions.

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  3. Great tool for the classroom. Provides opportunity for engagement and collaboration.

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  4. Is there any way to have a list of who contributed to the page to check if they did it or would we have to just figure it out? if we wanted to use it in the class for homework. I saw your talk yesterday and I really would like to use this in the classroom.

    Thanks.

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  5. Great tool!
    For those of you already using cell phones in the classroom, how do you handle equity issues? If a student doesn't have unlimited or any texting available, what do you do?
    Thanks!

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