Introduction
Mobile phones are powerful hand held computers that can be
used as learning tools. They can also be a distraction to students and have
been banned from many schools. However students like their mobile phones and if
used in claver ways they can be used to inspire and motivate.
Idea 15 – Buy a cheap
SIM card for an old mobile phone and use it for voting and gathering feedback
from students.
The last time I up-graded my phone I bought a pay as you go
SIM card for my old hand set. It cost me £5. I can now use this phone and the
number that goes with it to collect text messages from students. Because I
never ring anyone or text anyone with the phone the £5 out lay has been my only
cost.
Many students have contract phones or pay as you go deals
which include free text messages so the outlay for the student is minimal.
Idea 16 – Contact the
students by mobile phone through free web sites such as cardboard fish.
To save on money you can use web sites like Cardboard Fish to text students. It’s great
for reminding them about deadlines or to bring permission slips back to school.
It does depend on you having their mobile phone number. However many schools
keep this data on their Management Information System.
If your schools has truancy
call you will also probably have call
parents. With call parents you can send out text massages and automated
voice messages to parents. Try using this for positive praise or to let parents
no that there is test / preliminary examination coming up. You can send out
multiple messages from the school office in a matter of minutes and it cost
half the price of a second class letter.
Idea 17 – Get pupils
to enter key Geography deadlines into their mobile phone calendar.
The good thing about using a mobile phone calendar (if
students know how to use them) is that you can get them to set an alarm to tell
them when to do the homework and to remind them the night before about a test.
It is important to remember that just because you (the
teacher) don’t know how to use the calendar on your phone or you don’t have a
calendar on your phone. That you still should suggest the idea to students. If
they don’t know how to do it get them to write the homework down in the normal
way (homework diary). I can guarantee that by the next lesson they will have
learnt how to do it (they would much rather use their phones than write!).
Idea 18 – Use mobile
phones as a fieldwork note book. Save data as a text message for later
analysis.
Students don’t like walking around the town with clipboards
collecting data. It’s not cool. But if you ask them to use their phone to
collect the data, they quite like that. Information can be recorded as a text
message and then either texted back to the classroom (see Idea 14 above) or copied
up later.
Idea 19 – Use the
phones voice recorder, video capture and camera facility to collect
photographs, record interviews and conduct questionnaires.
Students will no if their phone can do these things or not.
If their phones can, why not give them the option to use their phones for
conducting fieldwork. Not only will it
help them remember the interviews but it will also give you proof that they
have actually done the work. It will also get around the problem of a lack of
department digital camera.
See my blog
entry from the 12th June when I conducted some controversial mobile
phone fieldwork with great success.
Idea 19 – If you can
speak well under pressure, you can write well under pressure.
One thing that I have been playing around with is getting students
to speak the answers to examination questions into their phone or Mp3 player
voice recorder.
As soon as they know they are going to be recorded and that
you are going to playback their responses they really start to think about what
they are going to say. You can also get students to imagine that it was a
written response and to give themselves a mark. If it’s not full marks they
have to record it again. The thinking skills involved in this exercise are then
transferable to paper. Tell students to speak their answer (in their head) before
writing their response. Watch the quality of their writing improve!
One last point
The question of technology and the digital divide comes up
when talking about mobile phones, voice recorders and Mp3 players. I’ve gone
down the route of buys Mp3 players with voice recorders for the school library.
You can get then for a cheap as £20 and although they might not be the best or
top of the range, they are definitely fit for purpose. They have been bar coded
and they are signed out by the school librarian in the same way as you sign out
a library book.
We may also contact the students by mobile phone through free sms website http://www.seasms.com
Posted by: Avneet | October 06, 2007 at 08:10 PM