Strategy for Mobile Devices

Strategy for Mobile Devices

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Our district is starting to consider using student smart phones as a part of our overall device strategy. As we continue to think about leveraging this growing group of learning opportunities, I have gathered three ideas that I think are worth putting on the table (and not just our district table):

  1. This is an amazing list of iphone/ipod touch apps that are split out by learning discipline. There is more than enough there to do a pilot in high schools and middle schools.
  2. I have used Textmarks.com and Textthemob and a twitter backchannel (through texting, smart phones and the web) to great effect. Backchanneling should be a part of much of the PD and teaching practice in the future. (Putting texting into an assessment system isn’t quite ready yet, but I think it is going in that direction… it looks like you can already use sms for forums and communication via moodle: http://www.moodletxt.co.uk)
  3. This video is a great example of what the future may look like in terms of mobile devices. It is youtube, so you will have to access it somewhere other than on a school network (depending on the school).
  4. I also think that this blog is pretty much the coolest thing on the topic of cell phones in the classroom. Nice tools and a great focus on learning.

Let me know what other resources you are looking at in order to ensure that we can leverage these devices more in the future. And more than that, so we can actually have a strategy for how to do it.

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0 Comments

  2. Ben Wilkoff

    Thanks for the compliment.

    I don’t actually use the twitter backchannel with Textmark and TexttheMob. Textmarks and Textthemob are backchannels unto themselves.I use those two services when the people in the audience are not already Twitter users and I don’t have the time in the session to set them all up on twitter.

    I monitor Twitter hashtags with http://www.tweetgrid.com (I put it up in the corner of the projection screen) and Textmarks/Textthemob gives you an easily updatable webpage to check for the backchannel.

    Generally, I use a backchannel for two reasions:

    1. A collaborative note taking space
    2. A place to ask and answer questions

    Let me know if I should do a large post on backchanneling and I will.

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