The traditional approach – mobile phones are a distraction, kids will mess around with them and therefore they should be banned – is the wrong starting point. It is ironic that for years schools have spent heavily getting more computers into classrooms and yet when their students come into schools with their own powerful handheld computers, which are cheaper and more portable than laptops, they are immediately instructed to turn them off.
In June 2009, U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, stated “Finding ways to use cell phones to deliver lesson plans to students would improve education and meet federal guidelines.” This appears at odds with Michael Gove’s viewpoint.
A more fruitful approach would be to enquire in what ways might the use of mobile phones support and strengthen the curriculum and develop 21st century skills in learners. What if our starting point was to reconceptualise them as anytime, anywhere data collection, content creation and learning tools?
The ‘basic’ opportunities to integrate phones in classrooms include enabling learners to check the spelling or definition of a word, check facts, use the calculator functionality, look up reference images and maps related to content they are studying, create their own blog to publicly record their learning and work, create a short video clip of a presentation or performance as part of a portfolio of work, take notes on field trips for sharing with the class and for organising their schedules and homework.
However, the ever increasing capacity and functionality of smartphones is offering more opportunities for learners to take on varied roles and develop new skills;
- Digital storytellers: use of camera phones and video recording enable learners to act as digital witnesses and interview research subjects.
- Researchers: smartphones make great research tools as part of enquiry-based learning projects. To improve literacy students could be asked to write a paper, with cited references, based on their research findings.
- Documentary makers: taking photos, e.g. of some aspect of the local community, which could then be posted on class discussion boards, blogs or uploaded to photo sharing sites such a Flickr together with narrative descriptions.
Much work has been undertaken to use mobile applications to improve knowledge of specific curriculum areas including foreign languages, maths and literacy;
- Mobile Assisted Language Learning is fairly widespread internationally and enables students to access language learning materials and to communicate with their teachers and peers at any time.
- Students could make an audio tour of their local area or school in the foreign language they are studying on their mobile phone.
- Math4Mobile originated in the University of Haifa Faculty of Education. There are a suite of applications that can be downloaded on phones for free that support intuitive learning about mathematical concepts in different fields.
- A group of North Carolina schools gave students extra algebra problem sets on smartphones (Project K-Nect) and found much higher proficiency rates and attainment compared to those students not involved in the project.
- "Dr. Math" is a mobile phone based project in South Africa which connects students with live teachers via text-message to support their maths homework. Regular maths competitions are run with prizes of free air time.
- In Cape Town, the Mobile Phones for Literacy (m4Lit) project allows students to download short stories to their phones, comment on the stories, answer questions and even compose their own alternative endings.
- Using camera phones, students can improve their literacy by capturing images together with some written narrative and emailing the output to families and teachers for comment.
- It has been shown that students can develop their literacy by reading out loud passages of their own writing whilst recording themselves on their phones and then playing back the results.
- The Chinese Academy of Sciences is developing mobile phone word games for use by teachers. Learners will be asked to recognise and write strokes from specific characters as part of the game.
A more complete technology experience can be delivered by integrating students’ mobile phones with existing whiteboards and virtual learning environments in the school. Some practical examples include;
- Assessment for learning with instant feedback. A student can take a photo of a piece of their writing and send for discussion via Bluetooth to interactive whiteboard. A collaborative discussion can then take place with other learners around how it might be improved to meet success criteria.
- In lessons, using a free Web tool called Wiffiti, students can brainstorm from their cell phones by sending a text message which is displayed on the class whiteboard and updated continuously.
- Using free software from Poll Everywhere displayed on a whiteboard a teacher can check students understanding and clear up any misconceptions in real time by setting a question which all learners respond to. The system polls the results and displays the results in a pie chart.
- Learning management systems, such as Moodle, are developing versions for mobile devices which will enable mobile phone using students to connect to existing school infrastructure wherever they are.
Teacher fears are likely to be alleviated via two routes. Firstly, adopting a teacher as learner mind-set and working with the students, who are likely to be more au fait with the technology, to harness its potential.
This may include developing a set of commonly agreed principles around, safety, privacy and etiquette. Experience suggests that once the boundaries have been ‘tested’ by students, responsibly use quickly follows. Secondly, through the development of tailored CPD courses. In summer 2009, Columbia University’s Teachers College ran the first US course to specifically start to train teachers on how best to use mobile phones as part of their teaching repertoire in classrooms.
For those educators not ready to go the whole hog, field trips and homework offer two ‘out of classroom’ opportunities to utilise mobile phones to support learning.
For those favouring the big brother approach or where inappropriate behaviour might be a big issue, it is possible for teachers to interact with each student’s mobile phone (if issued by school) via use of Soti's MobiControl software. They can then apply standard classroom discipline techniques to the virtual world.
The key thing to ensure is that mobile phones are integrated in engaging, collaborative and productive ways into existing learning environments, infrastructure and the curriculum. A key outcome for using mobile phones as learning conduits must be the development of independent anytime, anywhere learners.
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