Wednesday, November 28, 2007

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment