I recently came across an article by Marc Prensky "What Can You Learn From A Cell Phone?-Almost Anything!". He stated that one-and-one half billion people, all over the world, are walking around with powerful computers in their pockets and purses. The fact is they often don't realize it, because they call it something else. But today's high-end cell phones have the computing power of a mid-1990's PC (while consuming one one-hundredth of the energy). Even the simplest, voice-only phones have more complex and powerful chips than the 1969 on-board computer that landed a spaceship on the moon!
Today's young people are using their cell phones for communicating by voice, text, and increasingly, digital photographs and videos.
Like all communication and computing devices, cell phones, can be used to learn. So rather than fight the trend for kids to come to school carrying their own powerful learning devices - which they have already paid for! - why not use the opportunity to our advantage?
At this years NERIC Technology Awareness Day, a statement by our District Superintent struck me. He stated "students should not come to school and use less technology that they use on the bus on the way to school".
I came across a site that allows live audience responses, somewhat like voting on American Idol. POLLEVERYWHERE is a text message polling and live audience response system. It is simple enough for anyone to use and flexible enough for a wide range of scenarios to interact with audiences and collect data.
You can insert a poll within an existing PowerPoint and get real time answers from your students. You can also conveniently log into a web site to vote.
Sure, as with any type of technology, students need to be monitored.
We have not used this yet but plan to with several volunteer teachers. Stay tuned....
http://polleverywhere.com
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I am interrested in how much monitoring this needs and how you can make sure they are doing what the teacher wants instead of texting and playing I find it very hard to be able to tell what they are doing. I would love to know if there are tricks that I can use to make sure the cell is being used the way WE want it used. My first reaction is to say no way let cells be used but I would love to see if there is a way to have peace. Thanks Barb
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