Mobile Study Notes...So much "cooler" than notecards!

This video focuses on a teacher in Australia who was able to engage his students in studying by using the cell phone for mobile flash cards and study notes, rather than the traditional pen/paper/note cards. He found that by using the cell phone, studying become so much "cooler" and engaged more students in learning the content. Therefore, cell phones may not only aid in learning, but they may help make learning more "hip" and motivate more students to take the time to study. Additionally by having mobile note cards on the cell phone, students have a "built-in" study aid with them at all times, so if they are waiting in line they can take out their cell phone and study! Whereas they may not always carry around paper note cards with them.

Is Your Webiste Mobile Friendly?

At ready.mobi you can check to see if a website or webpage is mobile friendly. This is a free resource that will give you statistical feedback on how user friendly the website will be on a mobile phone (a mobile readiness rating of 1 to 5). It also includes a visualization emulator to see what your site would look like on a mobile phone (you can even select the brand of phone). I think this resource could be very handy for teachers who want their students to access the internet for homework or out-of-school activities knowing that some of their students will have to access the web via cell phone. This is also nice for students who are building websites and want it to be accessible to as many people as possible, they can check their site statistics on ready.mobi!

Create Mobile Websites! So Easy!

I am so excited about this new site I came across called Zinadoo. While there are other websites such as Winksite or Mob5 that allow you to create "mobile friendly" websites, Zinadoo is one of the first that is an easy template-based flash site. In Zinadoo they have design templates based on categories such as News or Politics, and then you can even add your own images, text, and links just like working in a Word editor! And it is free (of course, as with most web2.0 sites, there is an upgrade option)! Fantastic! Once you create your mobile website, you can register it so you get a mobile friendly .mobi link. This is great for teachers who want to create class websites that students and/or parents can access from their cell phones. Additionally students can create mobile websites for class projects or assignments. At anytime students can log in to their Zinadoo account and update their website. The best part is that students do not need to bring their cell phones to school in order to create mobile websites. They may even have fun learning and doing with Zinadoo!

K-12 Online Conference Teaser!

In October I will be presenting at the virtual K-12 Online Conference. I will be presenting on Cell Phones as Learning Tools. Below I have pasted the "teaser"--a preview of my presentation. The conference has some fantastic and very current topics in web2.0 education. Some of the ones I am very excited about are “Oodles of Googles”, “The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style”, “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”, “Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0”, and “Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”. I encourage everyone who can to check it out!

Create Surveys for Student's Cell Phones!

Using a resource called ModiOde, anyone can create simply surveys and polls to distribute on cell phones! There is an option for a free account, where you can have 1 active survey at a time (but no limit on the number of people whoa can take the survey). Additionally the poll results immediately show up in a private account on the ModiOde site, where the statistical results can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet! I really like this resource because it lends itself so well to secondary classrooms that are interested in opinion polling. For example a social studies class studying the current presidential election could have students create different polls to find out who the top candidates are. Or a science teacher could have students conduct a research study by creating a cell phone survey as part of their study (they may be able to gather more participants in their studies since the polls can be distributed over the Internet and via cell phone). Furthermore teachers who want an "ice breaker" activity to start a new unit can send out a cell phone poll for students to take before class on the unit topic (such as "what causes an earthquake") to see how much knowledge the students currently have on the topic. The best part of this resource is that students do not need to bring their cell phones to school in order to create cell phone surveys or participate in them.

Some Thoughts on Future Cell Phone Technologies

Cell phones are changing everyday, bigger and better improvements. I remember a time (not so long ago) when cell phones were big and bulky, now cell phones are being created the size of a credit card! I thought I would take some time to explore what features the Cell Phones of 2008/09 will hold, and how those features may be useful in learning. Below are ten new features that I think are impressive.

1) Classroom projection tool (LCD display). (http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17395&ch=infotech) Cell Phones will soon (some do now) have the ability to project in high definition and project. Hence, no more need for expensive LCD projectors in school!

2) Scanners and Faxes. Scanr (http://scanr.com) gives cell phones the ability to become digital scanners and faxes...Scanr can turn a camera phone into a pdf creator.

3) Live Streaming. AT&T (http://tinyurl.com/3bsjgy) has created Video Share, where you can stream live video to and from your cell phone...hmmm this may be helpful for kids who are missing class because they are home sick or their parents decided to take a vacation during the school year!

4) GPS and Tracking. While Cell phones have had GPS chips in them since about 2002, they are just starting to be used. WayFinder (http://www.wayfinder.com) allows anyone to use voice navigation for driving, speed limit warnings on your cell, and up-to-date traffic maps right on their cell phone! No need to buy OnStar anymore!

5) E-Commerce. A lot of business is conducted through cell phones today. The amount of business conducted by mobile devices is only going to grow, for example Unwiredbuyer (http://www.unwiredbuyer.com) allows you to conduct ebay auctions entirely through a cell phone. This may be an opportunity for students to participate in more "real world" business and economic projects and learn how to use their cell phones as financial planners.

6) Starter Cell Phones. Some companies are starting to create age appropriate cell phones, such as LeapFrog's My Tic Talk (http://mytictalk.com/LeapFrog). Where the cell phones are entirely controlled by the parents (they program in numbers their children can call and permissions on when they can call). These may be nice tools to introduce younger students to cell phones and digital etiquette.

7) Assistive Cell Phones. Cell phones may be a way to help students with special needs (especially visual and auditory needs) participate better in the learning process and in society. Nuance Talks (http://www.nuance.com/talks) and Nuance Zooms (http://www.nuance.com/zooms) have created cell phone software that will convert any cell phone text into audio and magnify any cell phone screen. Additionally many cell phones will probably include closed-captioning for hearing impaired learners!

8) Education Software. I have posted about this before, but it is important to reiterate that companies are starting to create educational software specifically for cell phones. Two examples: Mobile Math (http://www.math4mobile.com) and Ready To Learn.

9) Solar Powered Cell Phones. "Green" science teachers may appreciate that companies are starting to create solar powered cell phones, thus using up less energy and not having to worry about power! What a great conservation lesson for science students. One example by a Japanese company called NTT DoCoMo (http://www.therawfeed.com/2006/12/solar-powered-cell-phone-charges-free.html). This also means less accessories that you have to cart around with your cell phone!

10) Storage Devices and Radios. The iPhone (http://www.apple.com/iphone) has 8GB of storage space...maybe this means that we can alleviate the need for flash drives and other external storage devices, with a cell phone you will have a built-in hard drive! Additionally, Nokia is already creating cell phones with built-in radio antennas---FM or XM radio right from the cell phone.