Cell Phones as Learning Tools

Now here is one of the sessions I have been looking forward to. One of my main goals for this year is to integrate cell phones into my instruction, and here is the first session to do so. We start out with a poll on wiffiti. We answered a question on the percentage of schools that are providing 21st Century instruction (I guessed 29%).

The presenter for this session is Liz Kolb. Visit the wiki for the session here, and her blog and book. All of the activities we are seeing today can be done with any cell phone, so a smart phone is not needed (although there are more ideas for these smart phones).

Liz gives us four reasons to integrate cell phones in learning.

1. The number of students that have cell phones: 76%. We sent a text to polleverywhere to see how polling live can be used.

2. How do students use their cell phones? Communication, texting, and music are big!

3. How do students like to learn? They like to collaborate, they want to get things at anytime or any place, have structured activities, and have relevance to their world. How do you do this? How about ChaCha? Use 1.800.2CHACHA or text CHACHA [242 242] for an almost immediate answer.

There are also mobile blogs that are available out there. News organizations are depending on instant info from normal citizens, and many sites (CNN.com, etc.) are offering places for iReporting. We are going to become mobile citizen journalists for NECC 2008. We're looking at go@blogger.com. This is some amazing stuff. I'm going to be posting photos to my blog like crazy now!

Next is gabcast. You can podcast directly to a blog. This session is so amazing. Why are they limiting Liz to only one hour and only one session? I can't wait to get her book! If you are ever at a conference (or anywhere else) and get a chance to see Liz speak, do yourself a favor and do so! This is giving me so many great things that I can do with my students (and teachers).

We move onto Flickr and their mobile version. Then on to blip.tv. And finally Jott. There's just too much! I wish I could share more, but I was playing. Hopefully we can get Liz to come to our CFF Boot Camp this fall, and THIS is exactly what we need!

If you want more info on a session like this, please check out the links in the beginning of this post. I wish this session had a lot more time.