Schools Are Banning Powerful Teaching Aids (BCE 8C1)

I was recently asked what I thought the classroom of the year 2020 would look like… hmmm… that’s just 10 short years away.  Thirty years ago when I was in middle school, it was believed that the school of the new millennium would be significantly different than the classroom in which I was sitting; however, I find that MOST things about the middle school classrooms in which I teach are not really that much different, after all.

Now, yes, there have been many new technologies available to the general public but most have not been capitalized on in the classroom.  Look at the mobile phone, for example.  My students are amazed when I share with them the fact that when I was their age, we had exactly two phones – not personal phones, but family phones that were tethered to the walls.  No conversations were private and certainly none were mobile.  If you were “waiting for a call,” you were stuck at home literally waiting for the call until it came because, at that time, we did not even have an answering machine.

Fast forward now to 2009, over half of every middle school student that I teach owns a cell phone and carries it to school each day.  Using the cell phone at school, however, is banned – just as it is in most schools across America.  Here I am with four antiquated desktop computers in the back of my room that are just waiting to have the software updated from Windows 98 while many students in my class have a powerful computer right in their pockets that they are not permitted to use at school.

I’ve put together a small collection of videos and articles about the power and potential of the mobile phone in the classroom.   Perhaps it will get us thinking about a few things and rethinking those signs that hang on the front doors of our schools.

I’d like to start off with a powerful little video entitled A Vision of Students Today that is posted on YouTube.  Actually, there are many like this one out there, so I’ll get you started by sharing a few others, too.

Okay, let me preface this next video with, “I hate the Simpson’s cartoon!”  I know that many of you, like my husband, find it hysterically funny and perhaps a bit Seinfeld-ish in that it reflects back the world in which we live (God help us!).   Take a peek at this Simpson clip.  And as Steve Dembo points out, it is funny because it bears some truth.

My next little find was a video produced at a real school with a real teacher featured in the video.  Besides the insight she offers about the  power of using cell phones in the classroom, I cannot help but be struck by the irony of my own learning here that has resulted because of technology:  This video was made in Lithuania and the woman is speaking Lithuanian.  When I was in school, I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you where Lithuania is on a map and now my students are able to access an interview with a Lithuanian woman and hear authentic Lithuanian speech with a few clicks of a mouse or taps of a cell phone key.  Amazing!

How can a cell phone be used in a high school classroom to motivate students to learn about circumference and line of best fit?  Check out this site to learn how one Colorado teacher did just that.

Would you want to attend “Mobile Phone U”?  Sound strange? Or perhaps the potential sounds exciting?   See how the cell phone is being put to use at a university to motivate students, teach concepts, communicate with students, share ideas among learners, take surveys, and even guide them around the campus.

There are many videos available about the power and  potential of cell phones in the classroom.  Below are a few more if your appetite hasn’t yet been satiated.  For more, just Google “cell phones in the classroom” or “mobile phone applications in education.”

• Education and the Mobile Phone
• Mobile Technology in Education

So… you’ve seen a sampling of what is out there.  Now I’ll share my ideas with you.  I started teaching exactly 20 years ago and although there are many advances in what we know as a society, little has changed in the public school setting.  Our students need to be challenged and engaged at much higher levels.  They deserve to learn using the tools that they will be expected to use in their own lives and on the jobs that they will one day hold.  As one of the videos points out, many of the jobs that the students of today will hold do not even exist, yet.  How do we prepare students today for tomorrow’s jobs if we don’t know what those jobs will be?  Well, for starters, we need to teach our students to be thinkers.  More than learning information and memorizing facts, they need to learn how to access information and apply facts.   Let’s try a little experiment.  I’m going to ask you three questions that students are asked to memorize during their middle/high school years in history class.  You are going to use your brain power to recall the information and I will “Google” for answers (you already know who’s going to win, don’t you?).  Ready?

1. Who was Lewis and Clark’s guides?  Name both the Canadian fur-trader and his “wife.”
2. In what year was the Louisiana Purchase acquired?
3. What events mark the beginning and end of World War I?

Okay, it wasn’t a fair race because I had the power of technology and billions of brains to help me and you had to rely on the recall of one brain – yours.  What?  You thought I would provide you with the answers here?  I found all three AND lots of additional information, too.  Google it.  You have the power of the internet or your cell phone right at your fingertips right now.  Use the power and unlock the potential now and in your own classrooms.

I leave you with this parting cartoon created by datruss and posted to toondoo on 7/20/2009.

Technology in the Classroom (BCE 8A1)

I took a closer look at the Zoho Notebook this week and its potential seems fabulous for classroom applications.  I have signed up for a free account and have been playing with the features which so far seem intuitive enough that my middle school students could easily use it.  As I venture into the Read/Write Web with my students, the Zoho Notebook seems to be a terrific way to keep track of all of their (and my) web resources.   It allows my global-thinking students to incorporate video, audio, text, images, and links all in one place.  They can take notes, save pictures, collect relative links, and create or save audio and video segments related to the topic at hand.  I’d love to see an actual page created by a student.  If you have a link, feel free to leave it in the Comments for me to visit.