Marching Band, Vocal Music, Choral Groups...Create a Mobile Music Campaign!

Using the resource Mozes, anyone can create a free (for 180 days) mobile campaign. Mozes is similar to TextMarks. The real power of Mozes is that it targets musical groups. This resource has the potential to be a fantastic tool for school instrumental and vocal musical groups to publish and promote their original songs and musical pieces. Here is how...once teachers create an account with Mozes, they create a mobile "keyword" such as "huronband" or "choralsongs". The keyword is what anyone can type into their mobile phone and send to the standard Mozes number (66937). They will then receive a message from the musical group and will have the option to subscribe to new information about the group. For example the high school "show singers" could send out mass text messages updating their event schedule, or advertising a new DVD that they are trying to sell. Also, in the mobile message, the musical group can include a ringtone, video, or image (great for advertising the group's latest song or DVD cover). The teacher can exclusively hold the password to the account, so they could approve all mobile messages sent out. In addition, Mozes allows the teacher (and students) to keep track of the number of subscribers. The teacher can "moderate" subscribers, so they can select to accept or deny them access to the mobile campaign (again, this gives the teacher some control over who is getting the information). Subscribers can comment on the messages/media sent to them, which allows feedback for the students. But the nice thing is that the teacher can moderate comments before they show up on the class Mozes website. Finally, my favorite part of Mozes is that you can create unique and easy text message polls, quizzes, or messages w/individual replies for all subscribes.

Pros:
1) Lots of teacher moderation and privacy controls
2) You can send all types of media to subscribers
3) Easy to Subscribe and easy tracking of subscribers
4) Parents/community members can save the media and share with friends to "show off" their children's latest project!
5) Mobile web address
6) Mozes couples with Google video
7) You can have multiple key words (one for each class period, or one for each musical group)
8) Mozes lets you send out text message polls, surveys, quizzes, trivia facts to all subscribers!
9) Mozes allows for mass messages with unique and individual replies (such as asking if people would like tickets to a school event and how many they would like---thus virtual ticket sales).

Cons:
1) It is only free for 180 days...then it is a small fee to use the service :(
2) Text messaging charges may apply for some.

Classroom Application:
Vocal and Instrumental music
As I mention, I think the strongest application for this particular resource is through the school's music department. I know (and have worked with) many school musical groups enjoy publishing a CD of their latest songs and original work. Mozes, would be a great way to send ring tones of songs to parents and community members (which they can share with relatives and friends directly from their cell phones). It is also a nice way to send information about benefits, fund raisers, and upcoming events. Using the poll feature, after an event, students could gather feedback about the event itself.

Virtual Art Gallery
Since all different types of media can be sent to subscribers, the art department at schools may also find this service useful. They could set up a virtual art gallery, where parents, community members, and art connoisseurs can subscribe to their children's art class, and enjoy updates of the latest work. They could also include information on upcoming art displays throughout the community.

School Musical or other Events
The upcoming school musical could easily be promoted and tickets could be sold using Mozes. A short promotional video, ringtone, or musical poster could be sent out to subscribers at Mozes, giving them information on purchasing tickets. Subscribers, could then text back their ticket purchase requests, then the student (or teacher) in charge of the Mozes account could actually send them a virtual ticket (via cell) with the ticket number and seating information! I think this could easily be done with other events such as concerts, plays, and benefits.

Before and After school Pop Quizzes! ...The fun kind
Using the easy poll/survey feature of Mozes, the teacher could create a Mozes account to send out "pop quizzes" to their students anytime! It could be a fun extra credit activity to see how current students are on class information (first one to text the correct answer back wins...), to test them on how quickly they can find information for the upcoming unit, or to get them to search for knowledge in their everyday lives (such as a local historical landmark).

Trivia Share
Using the trivia feature of Mozes, different students could be assigned to send out interesting trivia facts or data about the current or upcoming unit (maybe an extension of the information they are learning in class). They could also use the trivia feature to study for their upcoming unit quiz or test.

Information Gathering
Students in a science or social studies class could create a Poll concerning a controversial issue (such as stem cell research or the 2008 election), and send it out to subscribers to collect opinion polling data on the issue.

Mobile Voice with Snapvine

I have been playing with a free resource called Snapvine. It has a strong emphasis on the power of voice. It allows anyone to use their mobile phone (or landline) to audioblog or record voice. Snapvine allows you to post directly to a public blog on their site, or to a private "voice comments" page. Besides posting audio to a blog, you can also call a number (from any phone) to send voice comments to anyone with an email address. Additionally, you are also give a "permanent" number where people can call and leave you a voice comment on Snapvine.

TRY IT!
Feel free to try out my Snapvine Voice Comment box, by leaving a comment, that will automatically appear in my private box. Then I will be able to "approve" it for publication. Don't forget to press 1 when you finish to save your comment in my private box. Here is the number:
1-206-777-0137
Code: *6266654

The Pros
1) Snapvine allows you to post audioblogs from any phone as long as you register the phone number in your account. I think this gives you some control over who posts to your Snapvine account.
2) No advertisements on the blog pages.
3) You can use a landline phone.
4) For students who do not have cell phones or easy access to landlines, can record via a computer microphone on the Snapvine website.
5) You can make your Snapvine blog private, so just your students could do mobile audioblogs and no one else can listen to them.
6) The teacher can create the account and "approve" voice comments before they are posted.
7) You get an automatic RSS feed with your Snapvine blog.
8) You could use voice comments as a free voicemail system, where nobody actually knows your phone number, but can leave messages.
9) You can embed all of your voice comments at one time. For example if your students each called in their own math jingle, you can immediately embed all 30 of them at one time. This is a great time-savor

The Cons
1) The phone numbers for Snapvine are not toll-free.
2) You need to call a different number to hear voice comments than you call for voice posting...this can be a bit confusing (although it would not keep me from using the resource).
3) Only audio mobile blogging at the moment, no photo, text, or video from mobile phones...yet!


Classroom Integration:
Moderated Podcasting
There are a variety of ways this resource could be used, but one of my favorites is for "moderated" podcasting. While I love Gabcast, one of the problems with Gabcast is that there are no ways to keep students from immediately publishing their work. Teachers do not have the ability to moderate podcasts through Gabcast. However, Snapvine gives teachers the ability to moderate with the voice comment system. The teacher can decide when to publish comments. The teacher can also listen to the comments through their cell phones, so they can moderate comments via their cell phone (in case they are away from the Internet and would like to decide on publication of the student podcasts). Furthermore, since the Snapvine public blog does not have advertisements it really is an ideal place for students to learn how to podcast and to share their podcast experience.

Oral Quizzes
Teachers could use Snapvine's voice comment system as a way to administer and collect oral quizzes from students. Snapvine allows you to create a "greeting" that will be heard by anyone who calls in to send you a comment. Therefore the teacher could create a greeting with the assignment for the students, so that when the students call in to Snapvine, they hear the "assignment" and then take their oral quiz (by creating a new comment). Snapvine can be set up so that the quiz automatically post into the teacher's private account. Snapvine also allows the teacher to send a voice a comment back to the student. One additional feature that I like is that the teacher can check the oral quizzes at anytime, since the teacher can call in to Snapvine to hear them (thus not needing to have Internet access to evaluate the quizzes). I see this application helpful for any subject but especially for English/LA, ESL, Foreign Language, Science, and Social Studies.

ReQall: A phone management tool for students w/out Internet Access

Reqall is a free web-based service that allows anyone to call (U.S., Canada, or UK) a number (1-888-973-7255 for U.S./CA), and you can then say your message reminder to yourself. ReQall gives you up to 1 minute to say your message. ReQall will transcribe your message to text and put it in your private file on the web. You can also call ReQall and instead of adding a new message you can say "ReQall" to hear an old message that you left for yourself (or that someone else left for you). Since you can only record for 1 minute, it is not a service for long interviews or practicing debates, just notes, reminders, and quick oral language practice. ReQall also has folders to organize your ideas, such as saying "note" before starting your message, so your message will show up in a specific "notes" folder on ReQall's website. ReQall is very similar to Jott. The main differences I see between the two applications is that Jott links up with outside resources such as Twitter, Google calendar, or LiveJournal. Currently ReQall does not do this. But ReQall allows you to hear your message and other messages via cell phone or landline, so you don't have to have Internet access to hear your notes and reminders (while Jott can do something similar I find it more confusing). This is a nice feature for students who have cell phones, but do not have Internet access at home.

Classroom Connections:
Utilizing ReQall, students could use their cell phone as their sole management tool. Besides sending themselves reminder messages with ReQall, it also allows students to send messages to others. For example, students could send messages to their teacher's ReQall accounts. This could be great resource for field trips, when teachers want to check-up on students to make sure they are documenting their learning experience during the field trip. The teacher could ask the student's to ReQall a short message or note concerning different learning experiences, and send the message to the teacher. Furthermore, the message from the student will immediately show up in the ReQall box of the teacher, so the teacher just has to call ReQall from their cell phone. Additionally, all the notes are saved to the students and teacher's ReQall account on the web. All of this can happen in real-time during the field trip.

Another interesting way to use ReQall (or Jott) would be with ESL students and students who have speech disabilities. Since ReQall automatically transcribes every message, students can see (within a few minutes of the call) the written transcript. If the student's spoken English was annunciated well, their transcript should have few text errors.

The Million Project!

I was reading Scott McLeod's Dangerously Irrelevant blog post about video footage that high school students secretly took with their cell phones during class. Scott posed the question, "Cell phone cameras in the K-12 classroom: Punishable offenses or student-citizen journalism?" There is a fantastic discussion occurring in the comments, everything from praising the students for holding teachers accountable to being horrified that students would secretly record their teachers via cell phone. I tend to think this is another reason why it is so important to teach cell phone etiquette and safety early in education, and to acknowledge that the cell phone can cause harm as well as good. I equate the concept of cell phones as a "tool" or "toy" to that of Alfred Nobel who started the Nobel Prize. Nobel also invented dynamite for the sole purpose of help in mine work. Yet some claim dynamite is not a good invention because it can also cause destruction. Therefore people needed to be educated on how to handle the dynamite and control it. I think the same could be said of students with cell phones, they have such potential to be great learning tools, but the tool can also be used to cause harm to others (such as taking videos without consent and posting them to YouTube).

While reading the comments I came across one that pointed to an Australian organization called Droga5 (developed by David Droga) about a new project they started in New York schools called Million Project. The project pilot was launched at New York's KIPP charter schools last Fall. The idea is that every student in a New York city school is given a cell phone, which they will use in school for learning and outside of school for both learning and social communication. My understanding is that there is a rewards system to the phone (the better a student does in school, the more calling minutes they receive). While it is not necessarily a cell phone anyone can purchase at a mobile store (the Million phones have special controls built-in such as a "school mode" to prohibit certain activities during the school day, but allow educational use of the phones), I'm really excited to read the results of the pilot!

Ideas on how to teach young children cell phone etiquette/safety

I decided to write this blog because we seem to be ignoring some important statistics when it comes to cell phones and young children. According to the Yankee Group (2006) survey by 2010 54% of tweens ages 8-12 will have a cell phone. Additionally many phone companies such as Leapfrog are creating "starter phones" for younger kids with parent controls. We often wait until kids have cell phones before we start talking with them (if we talk to them??) about appropriate and inappropriate etiquette and safety. I propose that we be more proactive and start before they get a cell phone, similar to driving a car (we learn the rules of the road before we start driving) or playing a game (we read the instructions before we start playing). Below are some tips I have collected for parents or teachers to start proactive early intervention cell phone etiquette and safety tips. Please comment and add your own!

1) Help children understand the “cost” of a cell phone.
Go over your cell phone plan with your children, so they understand the costs associated with using the tool. Such as “every time mom sends a text message it costs mom .10 cents”. Parents could even have a “text message” piggy bank jar where they put in a dime every time they help their children send a text message so kids can see the relationship between a text message and the cost associated. To help them understand costs of calling and overcharges on “minutes.” Parents can give their children a certain number of minutes that they can use the cell phone each day or week (such as five minutes or ten minutes), and if the kids want to use it more, than they have to give the parents a few cents or do a chore.

2) Talk about when it is appropriate and inappropriate to make and answer calls or text message.
Together with their kids parents can create a “rules” chart as to where or when the kids (and parents!) are allowed to make calls and send text messages. For example it could say,
“You may only call and text message people you know and that are approved by mom or dad”
“You may not make calls or text message or answer them during meal times.”
“You may call and answer calls between 8:00am and 8:00pm."
“You may not call or answer calls when you are in a public place and it may disturb others around you. This includes a movie theater, a library, or church.”
“You should always get mom or dad’s approval before sending a picture or video of yourself, a friend, or family member to someone else.”

* Also, Parents should make sure they also talk about the reasons “why” calls or text messages should not be made during those time. Such as "you might wake someone up if you call late."

3) Talk with children about how they speak or text message on the cell phone.
Once again it would be a good idea to create a "rules" list with children. Some ideas might include:

“No need to speak loudly”
“Be aware that other people around you can hear your conversation, so be careful what information you are giving out in the conversation (such as a home address or even your name).”
“You should not text message or call someone when you are in the middle of a conversation with someone else.”

*Once again, make sure parents should also talk about the reasons “why” kids should or should not speak or text message that way on the cell phone. Such as "it is polite to pay full attention to the person who is speaking to you."

These ideas are a starting point, and I hope that we all can continue this conversation and come up with a reasonable list of how to educate younger children on cell phone safety and etiquette.

Social Studies! Next Assignment...send a video message to presidential candidates cell phones!

After reading about this opportunity on PicturePhoning, I thought this would be a great assignment for any social studies class studying current events, following the 2008 election campaigns. Students could research an issue of their own interest (such as stem cell research, the best way to get out of the current "recession", healthcare, global warming...etc), and send a video message through Mogreet the Vote to any of the presidential candidates personal cell phones. While the students have to select a "pre-made" video (they can select one side of the issue or the other), they can put in their own text message with it. It might be a fun and engaging homework assignment.

Mobile Education...Take a class on your cell phone!

Currently if you have a cell phone you can do the following...read a book, write a book, podcast, Jott notes, create a live TV or radio broadcast, check your google calendar, research information (GOOGL), surf the web (.mobi sites), create a blog, photoblog, videoblog, and now you can----take a class on your cell phone! Yes! No need to have Internet access or a home computer anymore to take distance learning classes (and no snail mail for video-based distance education). Japan is the first country (that I know of) to start doing this. In a recent USA Today article it describes how students can take an entire course via their cell phone. Currently the curriculum is limited to Enhanced podcasts (made primarily from PowerPoint) of course lectures. While this is a limited example, I have a feeling it will be expanding quickly into many different phone services and across the world.

This has potential for K-12 education; from dealing with absent students (they can take responsibility for loading videos of the class activities into their cell phone) to opening up education to different forms of teaching outside of the traditional classroom setting. For example, students who are studying about Business could be watching a lecture on how to start a new business and be told in the lecture to go into a local store, using their cell phone, and record an interview (it could even be a live broadcast--Talkshoe or QIK-- that other students in the same class could be listening to) with the owner or salespeople. It could be a "real world" LIVE classroom! I know this is a ways off, but an interesting concept.

Live with...Create Live TV or Radio Broadcasts from your Cell!

No more bulky equipment needed for live broadcasting...no laptops or external microphones or camcorders!!! You can use a free site called QIK to create a live video broadcast from your cell phone over the Internet (it can post directly on your blog in real time). The first thing I thought of when I heard of this site (Thanks to Pat Sine) was that it would be really easy to create student television stations with Live broadcasts that people could subscribe to, or that could be posted directly on the school website. About 7 years ago I started a student television station with my high schoolers, and wow, it was difficult. Each broadcast was painstakingly slow. We did it over the cable line using televisions and some of the classrooms did not have cable so some students never got to see the broadcasts. Additionally we had to render the broadcasts and upload to the Internet if we wanted parents and community members to see them. It took the focus away from the content and onto the tool (which I prefer not to do when working with technology). QIK would be a great solution for many of my television station problems. Set up a blog, and let students use their cell phone camcorders to do live broadcasts. They could also cover breaking stories in real time around the school or community. QIK is currently in it's alpha stage, so you do have to request an account, and they are only working with Nokia phones (but QIK claims that they will soon be adding new cell phones to their accounts).


If you want to do live radio broadcasts from your student's cell phones, you can do those easily with Talkshoe. Talkshoe allows anyone to create their own radio program for free over the Internet. Talkshoe is also great for live conferencing, since it allows many people the ability to "call in" to the live broadcast and participate. You can also set up your Talkshoe account to record the broadcasts, so that people who miss the live feed can still hear the show. The other nice aspect of this resource is that you are given one phone number with your channel that works with any phone, so any student's cell phone can actually do the live broadcast (great for those "breaking news" stories on the go!). Talk shoe also has some privacy options (nice for schools) and no advertising.

Google Calendar...A Mobile Student Organizer

The more I use Google Calendar, the more I think we should just replace all hard copy calendars and those bulky assignment notebooks with the free Google service. The best part is that not only is the Calendar service web-based and allows you to collaborate with others on a Calendar, but it is mobile! So students will always be able to have their calendars and schedules on hand (unlike hard copy assignment notebooks where they often forget these)...since they never leave home without their cell phones.

Here are a few reasons why the Google Calendar mobile features are so handy for teaching students life-long organizational skills.
1) You can have all of your events, assignment due dates, or meeting times sent to you as a text message reminder 24 hours or less before the actual due date (you decide how soon you want to be reminded).
2) You can retrieve your calendar information 24 hours before...therefore if you a meeting the next day but cannot remember the time or place (and you are not in front of the Internet) you can text message your Google Calendar, and it will message you back with all of your events for the next 24 hours!
3) You can create new events from your cell phone. Either by texting from your cell phone or using a service called JOTT (where you can create audio posts on your calendar from your cell phone).
4) Of course Google Calendar also links up with all other Google applications such as Documents, Sites (very cool way to wiki without advertisements), Presentations, and Maps. So anything students post to their Google Calendar can easily be retrieved and used in any Google Application or vice-versa. Anything posted in Google Calendar from a Google Ap, can be retrieved via cell phone.

Updates on some Favorite Resources...

A few great things have happened with some of my most often used mobile resources...
1) Polleverywhere has gone voter friendly! :0
They now allow anyone who signs up to get 1000 votes for free! Big improvement over the original 100 votes. This is great for secondary classroom teachers who have over 100 students. Also Polleverywhere now allows you to embed your poll into a blog or website with an easy link. For PC users, they have a downloadable slide to insert into a PowerPoint presentation which will show the poll receiving real time updates in PowerPoint.

2) Eyespot has mobile subscription options!
While you have always been able to post videos from cell phones directly into Eyespot, now Eyespot allows you to "subscribe" through your mobile phone to other people's Eyespot accounts. This can be useful in education for mobile journalism. For example students in a Journalism class can become "i reporters" and take and post videos of current news stories happening around the school/community directly into Eyespot. Then anyone who subscribes to the Eyespot account, will immediately receive the new video post in their mobile phone. Just another example of how Journalism is going mobile.

Persuasive Video on Cell Phones and Schools

I created this video for my presentation at the MACUL conference tomorrow in Grand Rapids, MI. I would love some feedback on it. The goal is to give a perspective of educational history and technology, where common technology tools (such as a chalkboard or pen or even Internet) were once banned and labeled "harmful" as we are doing with cell phones.

Enjoy!



Update: Here is the
Link to video on TeacherTube...Enjoy!

Utterz...All-In-One mobile blogging! Free! Finally!

While there are some fantastic mobile blogging resources on the web, such as Gabcast, Gcast, Eyespot, Radar, evoca, Flickr, Jott, and Go@blogger.com, none of them allow you to post video, audio, text, and photos directly to a blog from their account. For example, Gabcast only posts audio, and Eyespot posts video, while Flickr only will post images. Now, of course you can set up accounts in all 3 of the aforementioned resources to post to the same blog, but the data will be housed in 3 separate places online. A little inconvenient for teachers and students. It is a also a reason why many teachers would be afraid to ask their students to mobile blog different types of media, because they do not want to deal with too many different web accounts. Now, I am come accross a resource called Utterz. It is the first resource I have found on the web that lets you mobile blog all 4 types of media to one place, from one account! Even better, it is international! So people from 25 different countries (and more), can use this free resource.

Let's look at the positives:
1) It is international, so people from around the globe can participate.
2) It is free to use.
3) You can use a landline (nice for students and/or teachers who do not have cell phones)
4) You can text, photo, video, or audio blogs from one account!
5) It has private options for posting!
6) You can post audio,text,images, and video on the same post from one phone.
7) You can "reply" to other "utterzs" and "listen" to them on your mobile phone.
8) You can receive alerts when someone comments or replys to your "utter"
9) The utters show up within a few seconds in your utter webspace.
10) You can "utter" back and forth with others via cell phone (no need to have computer or Internet access)

The downside:
1) Unlike some of the other resources I mentioned earlier, it is not a toll-free number (it is probably hard to do this since it is international), so if you use a landline, it will cost money (unless you have unlimited long-distance or use long-distance at an "unlimited talk" time)
2) there is some advertising (although it is off to the side and reasonable).
3) Utterz did show up on my blog posts within 10 minutes, but it showed up in my "drafts" box in blogger. This is not necessarily a negative because teachers who want to moderate posts, can then hit the published button after they have viewed/listened to the post. But if you want it to immediately post to a blog---it seems to have some trouble doing this, it might be because I have comment moderation on? I'm not sure.

Other than not having a toll-free number (maybe that will change?!), Utterz is a great resource for mobile blogging because it is all-in-one media blogging. This would be a great resource for students who are on field trips or a break from school. On their field trip, they could "blog" photos, videos, text, or audio to their Utterz account (or an external blog). Over Spring break students could do the same (maybe for extra credit...), for example if they are studying ecosystems in science class, they could post images of creatures and/or plants they find at the beach. Utterz could also be used as an up-to-date local newspaper. Students could post local event information, video, reports, and images as they are happening in their community.

Mobile post sent by elikeren using Utterz. Replies. mp3