Cell phones are my favorite learning tool. You don't have to wait for them to turn on. Everyone knows how to use them. They're always with you and almost everybody has one making it easy to communicate, connect, and learn. Students love using their cell phones and while some view them as the enemy, others have learned to embrace these devices realizing what a powerful learning tool they are. I love helping people use cell phones to learn so when students from Mr. Mayo's class put out a survey asking teachers how they use cell phones for learning, I was happy to help.Here are my favorite ways to use cell phones for learning.
1) Poll Everywhere or Text The Mob
I use Poll Everywhere to capture the thoughts and ideas of every student.
2) Flickr
Flickr is a great way to quickly and easily create slideshows. This is fun to do with a new class. In an instant you can created a class slideshow by asking everyone to take their picture and place their name in the subject and something they want the class to know about them in the body, then email it to Flickr. Here's what that looks like http://www.flickr.com/photos/theinnovativeeducator/tags/cells4ed/show
3) iPadio
I use iPadio to make a quick and simple phonecast right from my phone. Here are some other ideas for phonecasting http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2010/12/ten-ideas-for-educating-innovatively.html
4) Twitter
I love Tweeting right from my phone and the updates feed directly into my website or blog. Some principals do this to celebrate student success and update the school on topics of importance. It instantly shows up on their website. Here's an example http://www.kurthahnschool.org.
5) Note Taking
I use my phone every day to take notes. The great thing about taking notes on a phone is that it's easy to search and share.
6) Cha Cha
If I don’t know something, I just text the question to Cha Cha at 242 242
If you have some ideas, you can help out these students by sharing your ideas at http://tinyurl.com/kidcellsurvey.
Mobile devices certainly seem to be the future of computing. I've been using Google Voice for about a year and have really come to appreciate it. There are some "hacks" that make the service a great classroom application. Some of my favorites include the ability to download voice mail as an mp3 file, the transcription of voice to text, and the ability to add a "call me" widget to your blog or wiki. I've put together a list of my "top 10 Google Voice tricks" that you can read here: http://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2010/12/10-google-voice-tricks-that-will-rock.html
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