Would you like to play a Cell Phone review game?

One of the most popular ways to review material in classrooms today is to use a jeopardy type game. When I started teaching I would use an overhead and have student's raise their hands when they knew the answer. There was always some confusion over who had their hand up first. One simple solution to this is the cell phone. On the mLearning-world.com blog, they suggest using cell phones as game "buzzers" and using Microsoft applications to help collect and store data. Similar to a CPS (classroom performance system) only it does not really cost anything if student's already have their own cell phones. If not all of your student's have a cell phones, then you can put them into groups (one cell per group). It might be a fun way to play an old review game.

You could even take this one step further and the teacher could text message a review question every so often (for example over spring break) to all the student's cell phones. The first student to text back or call in the correct answer wins (extra credit or something fun)! The students may enjoy the spontaneous review questions and look forward to them. It might be a nice way to keep student's thinking about content when they are outside of the classroom. Teachers could even put a student or groups of students in charge of sending out questions for each unit, they might enjoy it and it will allow them opportunities to synthesize the data or content information.

Scavenger Hunt with Cell Phones!

So I have been thinking about Classroom Performance Systems (often called the "blue clickers" by my student teachers), and wondering if a cell phone can do a similar function. Since the CPS systems often cost a good deal of money, many school districts cannot take advantage of them. In addition, I think that using cell phones would help "connect" students with their everyday lives outside of school and the tool they are using for class activities. As a result I have come up with an idea for "Cell Phone" scavenger hunt. This is how it works...

Image Scavenger Hunt
1) Teacher sets up a Fickr account and gets a mobile Flickr email address (which they give to the students)
2) Students are given a list of items they must find or learn for homework (this would also be a nice Spring or Winter break activity). For example the list may have to do with insects, and they are given a list of insects they need to locate and identify.
3) For homework (in the real world) when they locate an item on the list, they capture it with an image and send it to the class Flickr account (with a short text message to identify the item).

Audio Scavenger Hunt
1) Teacher sets up a Gabcast account (tutorial) and gets a Channel number/password (which they give to the students)
2) Students are given a list of items they must learn for homework (this would also be a nice Spring or Winter break activity). For example the list may have to do with American Government, and they are given a list of government concepts they need to learn.
3) For homework (in the real world) when they find someone who knows the concept, they capture it by recording in Gabcast on their cell phone and it will automatically post to the class Gabcast account (This can be put directly on a blog or just saved in the Gabcast account).
4) Back in class, students could upload the audio concepts to their cell phones by using csharpcomputing to use as a digital review or they could download them into iMovie and add images to represent the concepts.

Video Scavenger Hunt
This could also be done with video using Eyespot. Students in a math class could video tape experiences where they had to use their math skills in the real world (at the store, at the bank...etc) and send them to the private eyespot account set up by their teacher.

PowerPoint for Cell phones!

A really neat idea created by Doug Belshaw is to convert your PowerPoint to a mobile Ready device such as a cell phone. Doug has posted a really easy tutorial on his blog. I would only extend the tutorial by saying that once you convert the slides, you can use an easy free uploading site such as cellfish to send them to your cell phone. You can also use this tutorial to convert your slides to iPod-ready format for itunes. It's a great way to give students more access to class PowerPoint presentations (they can study the slides while they are in line at McDonalds). Students may also be more motivated to create a "mobile" PowerPoint to share with their peers and community members. Great Idea! You could also use this concept to create charts and graphs to be read on cell phones. Students could collect data and graph them in PowerPoint. Then they could export the graph/chart as a jpg from PowerPoint and upload it to their cell phone. They could also share their charts/graphs with others (for example if they were in charge of presenting about the 2008 election, students could put the data into a chart and send it out to students the night before the presentation so their classmates can start to ponder the issues in presentation the next day).

The Murmur Project: Cell Phone Oral Histories

In Canada an interesting project is being conducted on capturing "instant" oral histories using cell phones, called the Murmur Project. Basically people call in to Murmur from different geographic locations and walk around to recite recollections or more formal oral histories about their own experiences (or others that they interview, sometimes in real time at the location) in that particular geographic location. By allowing participants to walk around the location that they are referring to, it causes them to dig up memories or stories that they otherwise would have forgotten. It also allows them to interview people in their neighborhood to contribute to their stories. What a great way to capture and archive oral histories! And a very smart way to use cell phones as data collection tools! It also can give listeners a new perspective or a variety of perspectives on a particular city or location. It is a great resource to use in a class discussion about culture and ethnocentrism. You and/or your students can also participate in the project by filling out a simple form. What a fun homework or class project assignment for your students! And they get to use their favorite tool--the cell phone!

Eyespot=Instant video blogging!

I have been using the Eyespot website for the last 2 years. I love the online video editor, so that my students can edit videos from anywhere at anytime on any computer. They do not have to worry about storage. Eyespot is a nice alternative to iMovie and Moviemaker. While I love iMovie, with those huge iMovie files, you can really only work on the same computer while editing---of course you can try to transfer the gigantic iMovie file with a hard drive but sometimes the versions do not match from computer to computer and the file will not always transfer properly. And MovieMaker only lets you move the video "shell" from one computer to another, so you still have to transfer all of your media files....not easy for many. Additionally in schools, it is often hard to reserve the computer lab or laptops with the editing software, so students are often rushed to finish their projects during class. Also, teachers do not want to take away too much class time for video editing projects, so again it may stifle what the students can really do with a video-based project. Finally, video cameras are often scarece in schools and hard to check-out for students.

Eyespot is a fantastic alternative. While Eyepsot works a bit like Youtube, you can upload and share videos with anyone. Like Youtube, Eyepsot also allows you to upload videos from any cell phone directly into a private Eyespot account. But in Eyespot, you can also post directly on a blog from your cell phone by simply changing the settings in your Eyespot account! Finally Eyespot offers an online video editor (like iMovie). So you can send your videos from your cell phone to Eyespot, then edit them online. This means you do not have to be at the same computer to do all your editing and you do not have to worry about storage issues! Also, no need to check out a camcorder when you have a cell phone with video-capturing abilities! Fantastic! Students could do their video taping and editing for homework rather than taking class time. No need to bring the cell phones to class, because their final video could be safely in their private Eyespot account ready to download at school. And it is all FREE!

Debate...Should Cell Phones Be Allowed in Schools?

On the America's Debate website, they are contemplating both sides of whether Cell Phones should be allowed in schools. It is a great way to read about all different perspectives on this issue. Probably one of the most cited reasons for allowing cell phones in schools is "student safety" and not for learning. I think this may be because many are unaware of potential learning opportunities that can occur from coupling cell phones with classroom content. The debate is interesting and worth a read (maybe even a contribution if you are so included). While I believe that cell phones have learning potential and should be explored by teachers, I am not advocating that they have to always be brought into the classroom in order to be effective. As I have mentioned previously on my blog there are plenty of outside of school activities where the students can use their cell phones such as field trips or homework assignments. Additionally, by creating podcasts or collecting video or images with their cell phones for homework, teachers can save time on the in-class data collection activities and focus more on content learning.

Hurray! For Gcast Podcasting...

I want to share an article about one of my former Master's students. Pat Sattler is an innovative and very creative technology teacher in Southeastern Michigan. She works at a Catholic K-8 school where she wanted to do podcasting, but did not have lots of cash for equipment. She turned to the cell phone coupled with Gcast and Hipcast so that her students could podcast and create Radio Theaters. She only used one cell phone (her own, a basic Motorola Razr) with many students to create some fantastic Radio Theater. The projects continue and each podcast gets even more creative and interesting. And it all started with one cell phone and a free website! Even the state-wide Catholic school journal decided to publish about her successful project! A great lesson for me from this is that you do not need every student to have a cell phone in order to have engaging learning activities from them.

Cellfish...Easy Uploading to Cell Phone from Web

I came across a resource called Cellfish, where you can easily upload just about any file type (.mov, .jpg, .wmv...etc) to your cell phone! This is a really easy way to upload unique ring tones to cell phones. Learning connection ideas...

1) Students can create content-based ringtones such as a rap about elements in the periodic table for Chemistry or a jingle about a math concept (such as fractions) using Audacity or Garageband. They can then upload them to their cell phones using Cellfish. They can share their ringtones with each other so that they can program different ringtones for different cell phone actions (such as a rap about Calcium can be a ring tone for one friend and a rap about sodium can be a ring tone for another friend). Thus every time their cell phone rings they have an instant review!

2) Students can upload their video projects (exported from iMovie or MovieMaker as .mov or .wmv files) to their parents' cell phones so they can instantly view the projects (especially if they do not have internet access at home).

3) Teachers can assign videos to watch for homework (such as a PBS or NBC special) rather than taking class time to watch a video by having students upload the videos to their cell phones to watch. While not all videos are in QuickTime formate, more and more are being compressed for the ipod or QuickTime.

Make Any Blog Mobile!!

With a new site called FeedM8, you can easily make your blog cell phone friendly! This is a great feature for any teacher who has a class or student blogs and they would like parents (who do not have computers at home, but might have cell phones) to visit the blogs. It allows for more access. The images/movies seem to show up fairly well and all text and links work! It also allows you to embed the FeedM8 player on your blog site so people can sign up by clicking on the cell phone icon (I put one at the bottom of my page). Additionally, you can sign up by simply typing in your cell phones number and the blog is sent to your mobile phone. Fantastic!