Kelly Longrich's List: Cellphones in the Classroom

• Cellphones in the Classroom: Distraction or Tool?
• Among the recommendations the Department of Education makes in the NETP is a call for support for "efforts to ensure that all students and educators have 24/7 access to the Internet via devices, including mobile devices, and that states, districts, and schools adopt technologies and policies to enable leveraging the technology that students already have."
• Cellphones: Teens' Primary Communication and Computing Device, Banned from Most Schools
• More than 75% of those between the ages of 12-17 own cellphones. The cellphone is teens' preferred mode of communication, and as we all know, they use the cellphone not for voice but for texting. Teens send and receive an average of 3,339 texts per month, about six texts for every hour they're awake.
• Why We Should Allow Cellphones in the Classroom
• Allowing cellphones in the classroom isn't controversial simply because they pose a distraction. Some point to concerns about their use for cyberbullying. And others point out that students' cellphones can pose challenges to CIPA, the Children's Internet Protection Act.
• But beyond crucial lessons in digital citizenship, cellphones can be a great (and low-cost) technology tool in the classroom. Cellphones are cameras and audio recorders, allowing students to work on multimedia projects.
• Cellphones can be used to poll students in classrooms. In other words, cellphones can allow students to create and to share content, and they can provide an important bridge between the classroom and home.
• Changing Attitudes, Changing Policies
• Some also object to cellphones in the classroom as they may reveal the socioeconomic differences between students who have smartphones, those who have flipphones, and those who have none.
• Encouraging cellphones in the classroom is part of a larger push by some educators to embrace Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning
• With the encouragement of the Department of Education and the recommendation of the National Education Technology Plan, not to mention budget issues that make other forms of one-to-one computing impossible, it may be that more schools re-evaluate their policies around student cellphone usage.

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• Students Turn Their Cellphones On for Classroom Lessons
• A growing number of teachers, carefully navigating district policies and addressing their own concerns, are having students use their personal cellphones to make podcasts, take field notes, and organize their schedules and homework.
• Indeed, more educators are concluding that cellphones may be the only realistic way their schools can offer the 1-to-1 computing experiences that better-funded schools provide with laptops.
• At Buhler High, a Spanish teacher who is "very low-tech," according to Ms. Miller, created a channel for her Spanish 3 and 4 students to call from outside of school and record themselves speaking in Spanish. "She had them select an excellent Spanish poet; they got on their cellphones and said, 'Me llamo' and their name, and [in Spanish] 'I'd like to present this poet, Pablo,' and then they read the poem."
• "I guess this is replacing when you used to take a tape recorder and talk to your grandpa about the war," Ms. Miller said.
• Polleverywhere. com lets anyone post a poll or multiple-choice questionnaire that others can complete using cellphone texting.
• 'Best Resources Available'
• Podcasting and classroom-response systems are among the more than 100 uses of cellphones that educator Liz Kolb has collected, and in some cases invented, for her book Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education, published in October
• One key to the cellphone's usefulness is the wealth of Web-based services that have cropped up recently, not necessarily marketed for schools but generally free in their basic versions.
• Beyond Classrooms
• Cellphones with cameras also have great potential for simple data collection. They can enriching fieldwork or field trips by al-lowing students to snap images of, say, leaves, for later identification. Students also can snap pictures of museum exhibits and placards to fuel classroom discussions.
• "Mobile citizen journalism" is another popular trend that schools can harness, Ms. Kolb said, though she did not know of any school newspapers doing it extensively yet. "Schools can definitely set up their own mobile journalism text-messaging numbers," so students who are traveling can phone in reports and images, especially if they find themselves in the midst of breaking news.
• "Ninety-five percent of cellphone activities are better done outside the classroom," noted Ms. Kolb, adding that emphasizing outside activities means that students can spend classroom time analyzing the content that has been collected or recorded, rather than fussing with technology issues. Emphasizing off-campus cellphone use also helps teachers work within the more restrictive school district rules.
• 'Smartphone' Potential
• Because smartphones can be loaded with full-featured computer programs, plenty of software companies are working on educational applications. "I really do think smartphones are going to be one of the real game-changers in education in next five to 10 years," said Mr. Lysiak, "because of their [declining] cost and their capabilities."
• Once smartphones become widely affordable, he said, "students are walking around with 24/7 connection to the world that they can use for research purposes, publishing purposes, and connecting purposes."
• Equally important, he said, harnessing mobile communications will help schools stay relevant to students.
• "In our district, we really feel students are bored with the instruction they are getting," he said. "It's not that instruction has become boring, it's that the outside world they interact with has become so engaging, but we haven't kept up."
• "In our district, especially at high school, students have a cellphone on them at all times, just like a pencil — it's an underused tool."

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• BYOT: Bring your own tech to school By: Josh Higgins, USA TODAY, USA Today, 07347456, AUG 08, 2013
• More lesson plans now include cellphones
• Section: Money, Pg. 06b
• "(Using technology in everyday life is) not that new to us because we grew up with technology," Datla, a sophomore, said.
• Although schools have traditionally banned or limited cellphones in the classroom, 73% of Advanced Placement and National Writing Project teachers said their students use phones in the classroom or to complete assignments, according to a Pew Research Center study released in February.
• "Teachers are starting to take advantage of the opportunities of cellphones in the classroom," said George Fornero, superintendent of Township High School District 113, located outside Chicago, whose school system has begun allowing its students to use cellphones.
• She said parents and teachers are realizing the educational value of mobile phones, as new features have made these devices relevant to education. "Most people are now coming to school with a computer in their pocket," Domenech said.
• During the past few years, some schools, such as Mason High, have implemented "bring your own tech" programs, allowing students to use their devices for schoolwork.
• With mobile apps and the Internet at their fingertips, teachers and students are now using phones as clickers to answer questions, providing feedback on student progress, and also to document labs, collaborate on group projects and capture teachers' notes, Milman said.
• "(Mobile devices) promote a certain kind of learning … it's limited," Milman said. "It can be overused and used in ways that aren't educationally meaningful." For this reason, she said, it's important teachers receive proper training.
• Their use has also created worries about cheating, visiting inappro-priate websites, sexting or overuse. Policies banning phones were in place to counter these problems, but Fornero said no-tolerance policies were difficult to enforce and distracted administrators from tackling larger issues.

• "The kids taught us a lesson: They're still going to bring their phones anyway, so let's allow them to use them in a constructive way," he said.

  Bringing cellphones into the classroom raises questions about students who don't own personal devic
• said a lot of inequities exist, favoring more affluent, suburban communities
• So far, BYOT programs have been schools' temporary solution, with most students owning mobile devices, to circumvent the digital divide.
• Funding has been available for educational training, Milman said, but money for the necessary infrastructure -- Wi-Fi access and technical support -- has been harder to come by. Fornero said his school system received only local funding for improving its infrastructure.
• However, according to Richard Culatta, director of the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Educational Technology, the federal government is looking to close that large divide. About 80% of schools in the country don't have the infrastructure to support digital learning, according to government data.
• President Obama announced the ConnectED initiative on June 6, which aims to connect 99% of schools around the country to broadband Internet, and the Department of Education is working to prepare teachers to use technology.
• While Domenech estimated only 25% of schools now allow phones, he expects that to increase significantly in the next few years. Milman said to address schools' concerns, administrators should establish clear policies with parents and students and consequences for violating them.
• "There are schools around the world who are already using these," Milman said. "I think the schools that are not quite there should look to those schools and learn from them."

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• Communicating to Educators about the Benefits of Mobile Technologies: We Must Help Mobile Cross the Chasm!
• What technology has crossed the chasm in education--and been accepted by mainstream JPTs--just plain teachers?
• Electronic whiteboards (EWBs) and clickers?--Yes, but the former seem to have lost their luster lately. (say THAT fast 10 times!)
• Mobile technologies and BYOD? Hmm. "BYOD" is a technology initiative, not a curricular initiative. BYOD is gaining attention--but it has not crossed the chasm and been accepted by JPTs--not yet at least. iPads? Hmm. Let's hear what our readers have to say: have iPads crossed the chasm? Are iPads accepted by JPTs? Cellphones [3]? Ditto.
• Cost, which has been used as the reason not to adopt technology is increasingly become less of an issue. (For example, at the start of 2013-2014 school year, 7 inch Android tablets will be readily available at the gym-shoe price-level--about $100. But frankly, given the expense and proliferation of EWBs, it is disingenuous to use cost as a reason to not adopt technology--but let's not go there.)

• If we really want technology--mobile technologies in particular--to cross the chasm, and be adopted by JPTs, we educational technologists need to finally stop pushing the technology per se. Rather, we need to explain what are the benefits of using the technologies--what is the result of using mobile technologies--what is the impact on the children of using mobile technologies?

    
• When each and every child has an Internet-connected, mobile device in the palm of their hand, 24/7, how a child can learn changes--and what a child can learn changes. First the how:
• Each child now can take charge of and assume the responsibility for his/her own learning. For example, instead of having to wait to ask an adult (who probably won't know the answer), a child can now find answers themselves, immediately, on the Internet to their myriad questions.
• Each child can now create artifacts of multiple modalities, dipping into the World Wide Scrapbox for elements,
• Children can collaborate, talking together, working together, creating together. Learning is in the conversation; so in a conversation, when that inevitable (and desirable) dispute arises, each child, using the mobile device in the palm of their hand, can add facts/images/sounds to the conversation.
• The pedagogical vision of John Dewey, that one learns by doing, is enactable by all teachers: "[teachers] give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking... learning naturally results." Because each child has a full complement of "tools" in their digital tool belt, all teachers, not just the artisan teachers, can enact a learn-by-doing pedagogy

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• Communicating to Educators about the Benefits of Mobile Technologies: We Must Help Mobile Cross the Chasm!
• And what can a child learn that's so different and valuable? Through learn-by-doing, a child will move from knowing what to knowing how and knowing why. Yes, mobile devices make wonderful flash cards to support memorization of facts.
• But, by interacting with dynamic media--in the palm of the child's hand--he/she can see how plants grow and, changing the parameters, come to understand why.
• And in learning about plants, about electrons, about money, a child will learn how to learn
• A mobile device has more functionality than a typical laptop; the accelerometer, the GPS, the various sensors
• Do teachers, administrators, and parents want THAT for their children? Hell yes! So, now what? Well, we now have to give some empirical evidence that the above can actually happen. Picky Picky Picky. Challenging, but doable. Next, as we have argued till we are blue in the face [4], our community must provide the curriculum that JPTs will use with the mobile technologies.

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• Cell Phones in the Classroom: Collaborative or Calamitous?
• A recent college study “found that 95% of students bring their phones to class every day, 92% use their phones to text message during class time, and 10% admit they have texted during an exam on at least one occasion” (Tindell & Bohlander, 2012).
• Beatty (2004) noted that “By providing frequent feedback about students' ongoing learning and confusions, it can help an instructor dynamically adjust her teaching to students' real, immediate, changing needs.”
• Kaleta and Joosten’s (2007) echo these findings “53 percent of the student respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the claim clickers have been beneficial to their learning,”
• I have found a variety of open-source, creative commons licensed content that I can share with students (e.g. Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Innitiative, Cable Green’s work for the Washington State Community and Technical college, Salman Khan’s work through the Khan Academy, and the 48 hours of video content that continues to be uploaded to YouTube every hour of every day).
• in John Medina’s book Brain Rules (2008), he outlines 12 rules that explain why and how our brains learn, but he supports his conclusions with numerous studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals and successfully be replicated. For example, Brain Rule #4 is that we don’t pay attention to boring things. According to Medina, we as teachers have 10 minutes before attention starts to drift, but if we redesign our delivery of content to include activities using smartphones and other devices periodically throughout a class period, we can regain student attention and improve engagement and learning.

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• Why BYOD, Not Banning Cell Phones, Is the Answer
• "If your target audience isn't listening to you, it's not their fault, it's yours." --Seth Godin
• Banning is not the answer. Administrators need policies for today's students and teachers need to update outdated practices. We're well into the 21st century and it's time for schools to encourage educators to start using methods that will prepare students for their future rather than relying on the comfortable policies and methods of the past.  
• Why must administrators and teachers make this change?
   
   Because, when we continue to blame or ban the technology, we resolve the issue temporarily, but we disregard the root of the problem. When school staff refuse to consider this change, they are ignoring how the world works outside their buildings.
• Here are seven strategies to ensure connected students will tune in when learning with mobile technologies.
• nsure the right building blocks are in place
    This includes items such as responsible use policies, parent and/or student agreements, and lessons about safety/etiquette. Schools using cell phones in the classroom incorporate effective tech use into both student and teacher assessment.
• Update outdated classroom management techniques
    While some teachers may have been masters of classroom management in the days before students owned digital devices, the environment has changed. As a result, classroom management techniques must be updated. The nice thing, however, is that you don't have to worry about distribution, collection, storage, imaging , and charging of devices. The teacher should, however, ensure there are protocols in place for when and how students use their devices.
• Give students time to socialize
    Most young people are very social and there is nothing wrong with that. School is a great place to socialize. Educators who are successful at integrating technology into learning understand this and provide agreed upon times for students to engage in personal affairs on their digital devices--just as we all do in the real world.
• Connect with students in their world
    Ask your students and you'll find that texting is one of their favorite ways to communicate. When teachers give them an opportunity to use that tool for learning, they feel like their teachers are making an effort to relate to them in the ways they appreciate.
• Use texting to connect more deeply with students
    Teachers and guidance counselors are texting to connect more deeply with students. For example when Willyn Webb, counselor, educator, and coauthor of Teaching Generation Text, notices a student is absent for more than one day, she sends a message such as, "R u ok?" or "Hope you'll be back soon. We miss you." She might also text to provide recognition to a student such as, "Gr8 contributions in 2day's discussion!" or to provide encouragement to students with texts like, "Gd luck on ur interview!" or "Wishing u well in tryouts." 
  
• Engage students
    Innovative educators are inviting students to use their cell phones for learning in the classroom for a variety of purposes. Teachers who are doing this work report students are engaged more deeply than ever before. Students are using cell phones to phonecast (think podcasting without needing any equipment), find information on demand with tools like ChaCha, translate and define with Google SMS, share their feedback with student response systems, and learn and connect with the world using Twitter.
• Empower students with strategies to stay focused
    It's not unusual to hear teachers lay the blame on students, saying it is just too distracting for some students. The problem is, it's a teacher's job to help prepare students to be successful in their real world where technology is commonplace. A teacher is not helping a student become successful by creating an artificial environment in school. Instead, teachers can help empower students to take ownership of their learning and self-monitor.
   
    Michelle Luhtala, Department Chair at New Canaan High School library knows the value of empowering students to assess their workload and time constraints, be in touch with their learning styles, and then decide how to proceed so they can complete their work efficiently. When students own the learning, rather than distracting them, mobile devices can be used to improve their learning.
• It is incumbent upon educators to empower students to be independent and responsible learners who can self-monitor and discover the optimal conditions to learn and create.

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• Texting in the Classroom: Not Just a Distraction
• According to Pew, 83 percent of American adults now own cell phones and almost three-quarters (73 percent) send and receive text messages.
• study released  last year by Nielsen (2) found that those cellphone  users in the 13 to 17 age range were the most avid texters among any age group.
• And that Nielsen report pegged the texting  rate of 13 to 17 year olds at 3339 per month
• Certainly that age group -- in fact, all those under 18 -- are increasingly likely to be cellphone owners. According to those surveyed as part of Project Tomorrow (3)'s 2010 Speak Up report (PDF (4)), more than half of middle and high school students (51 percent and 56 percent respectively) own a cell phone (without  Internet access). In addition, 34 percent of middle schoolers and 44 percent of high schoolers own a smart phone.
• The reasons why cellphones are banned are, interestingly enough, many of the same things that make cellphones a potentially very useful educational tool: cellphones, particularly smart phones, are powerful mobile computing devices. If the cellphones have Internet access,  students can use them to look up information online. Cellphones double as calculators and as cameras. And unlike iPads, e-readers, tablets, smart phones, laptops or desktop PCs, these devices are ubiquitous. Moreover, as the statistics indicate, text-messaging seems to be the preferred method of communication of teens.
• But a variety of new tools have been released recently that are tapping into the popularity of texting and the ubiquity of cellphones and are demonstrating that these can, in fact, be used for educational purposes:
• Remind101 (5): Remind101 allows teachers to send text  messages (and email) home -- to students and/or to parents -- to offer reminders and updates  for class. Remind101 allows teachers to communicate with their classes without either teacher  or students having to share their phone numbers.
• Poll Everywhere (6): As the name suggests, Poll  Everywhere allows teachers to use cellphones for polling in class. Students text their  responses, using their cellphones to give feedback, answer questions, take quizzes.
• Celly (7): Celly provides SMS-based group messaging. Classrooms can use the service to take quick polls and quizzes, filter messages, get news updates, take notes, and organize and hold study groups. The groups can be public or private, moderated or  open.
• StudyBoost (8): StudyBoost allows students to study via  SMS-based quizzes. The questions can be self- or teacher-created, and can be multiple choice  or open-ended.
• As with any technology, cellphones do  require policies for acceptable use, and students need guidance on exactly what that means.  But these new tools do give educators a range of options should they decide to let students  turn their cellphones on in class. Many of these tools have been designed with the classroom  setting in mind, and have privacy policies, moderation features, and analytics so that teachers  can feel more confident in how texting is being utilized.
• But most importantly, perhaps, with cellphones becoming increasingly ubiquitous, text-  messaging tools are less likely than smartphone or even Web apps to exclude some students  because they don't have access to the latest technology.

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• 2013 Congressional Briefing National Release of Speak Up 2012 K-12 Students
• Key Findings from this year’s report include:
• With smartphone usage dramatically on the rise — 65 percent of students in grades 6-8 and 80 percent of students in grades 9-12 are smartphone users
• In fall 2011, 26 percent of students in grades 6-8 said that they had a personal tablet computer. In one year’s time, the percentage of middle school students with tablets jumped to 52 percent, a doubling over the 2011 percentage.
• • Among high school students with smartphones, only half say they can use their device at school and only nine percent of students say they can use their personal tablets at school. With 73 percentage of high school seniors saying they have a laptop, only 18 percent of the Class of 2013 say they are allowed to use their personal laptop at school.
   
   
   
   
  
   
    Do you know? Ten Things Everyone Should Know about K-12 Students’ Views on Digital Learning
   
  Do you know? Ten Things Everyone Should Know about K-12 Administrators’ Views on Digital Learning
   
   

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• What Do Parents Think About Mobile Learning?
• Mobile devices are coming to school.The Learning First Alliance (where I am deputy director) and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, recently released Living and Learning with Mobile Devices (1), which examines parents' attitudes towards mobile devices as learning tools.
• This survey, completed by parents of children age 3 to 18, found that 51 percent of high school students carry a smartphone with them to school every day -- so do 28 percent of middle school students and 8 percent of elementary school students.
• But are schools using mobile devices for learning?
• In many cases, no. While 17 percent of parents say that their child's school requires use of a portable or mobile device, in many cases it is a school-provided portable computer. And 72 percent of parents report that their child's school does not allow use of family-owned mobile devices.
• There are a number of legitimate concerns related to the use of mobile technology, particularly student/family-owned devices, in school. Two often cited are issues of equity and the potential for distraction. But given the ubiquity of mobile technology in daily life, the fact that kids are often told to power down at school reflects a disconnect that raises the issue of whether we are appropriately and adequately preparing students for life in the digital age.
• Unfortunately, parents are not seeing the learning potential of mobile devices fulfilled. Parents of K-12 students consider 69 percent of the apps and content that their children use regularly as "purely entertainment."
• The report offers a number of recommendations for how educators can engage parents in mobile learning efforts, including:
• • Model the safe, productive use of mobile devices as learning tools in practice
   
  • Partner with parents to make the case for mobile learning, develop mobile device policies and showcase best practices -- particularly for parents who are not yet persuaded
   
  • Enlist the support of parents who tend to be the most positive about mobile learning, including parents of younger children, parents of "super users" and tech-savvy parents
   
  • Offer authoritative information and advice to parents and students on how to make better use of mobile devices and apps for learning, rather than for entertainment only, and how to use them safely -- and differentiate this guidance for different grade levels
   
  • Do a better job communicating mobile device policies with parents -- a "back to school" packet of information might not be enough
   
   

  As we in education look to update our system to meet the needs of today's students, engaging with families who share our goals can only help speed up the process.

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• How to Use Cell Phones as Learning Tools

• Cell phones are different from a computer lab filled with computers or a cart of netbooks because the cell phone is personal technology. Most students have invested a great deal of time learning about the features of the cell phone, how to navigate and the limitations of the phone. The other reason to really rethink the cell phone debate is because learning on the cell phone can extend beyond the walls of the school or the confines of a class period.

   
• Some people may want to ban cell phones from classrooms, but I disagree. We didn’t ban pens in our schools because students can pass notes during class. The pencils have also survived even though you could poke someone in the eye. And the amount of paper that is generated in most schools is almost criminal. This is a new time in education and with dwindling budgets , so we need to rethink possibilities, stretching every dollar. These mini computers are walking through the doors each day, let’s put them to work.
• Recording Lectures: The “Flipped" Classroom
• Use Cell Phones as Your Student Response System
• Delivering Materials
• Awesome Teacher Apps
• Solving Common Problems Using Cell Phones in Class
• Students without Cell Phones / Smart Phones
• Wireless Access
• Keeping Cell Phone Use Appropriate

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• Teach with Your iPhone: Apps to Use in the Classroom

• Common Core

   

   MasteryConnect (3) has designed a wonderful app to keep the Common Core State Standards at your fingertips.

• Pick a Student

   

   It's important that all students are held accountable during class discussions and everyone has a chance to speak his or her mind. Replace that old coffee-can-with-popsicle-sticks method and choose which student to call on using the Pick a Student (4) app.

• Timer, Sand Timer and Traffic Light

   

   Whether you're preparing your students for state exams or feel that they need to practice their pacing and stamina, use the timer on your iPhone to keep them on task. Two alternatives to the timer included on your iPhone's clock app are Sand Timer (6) and Traffic Light (7).

• BookLeveler

   

   If you're organizing a classroom library or helping a student find a "just right" book, the BookLeveler app (8) will definitely come in handy.

• Groovy Grader

   

   Make on-the-go grading quick and easy with your iPhone. The Groovy Grader app (9) helps users figure out the percentage of questions a student answered correctly by simply inputting the total number of questions on an exam.

• WordPress

   

   If you manage a classroom or school blog, the Wordpress iPhone app (10) is a must-have.

• DocScan HD

   

   Like most teachers, I'm constantly trying to keep track of paperwork. DocScan HD (11) makes it easy to stay organized.

• MyScript Calculator

   

   You may have already downloaded a calculator on your iPhone, but MyScript Calculator (13) is in a category of its own! If you want to check the work of a student who you're meeting with in a small group, pull out your iPhone to write the operations on your screen.

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• Teachers Find Classroom Benefits For Cell Phones