CEP 812- Mobile Lab

Mobile devices can be great tools to help engage students in the classroom. Our classrooms cannot be the same as they were ten years, five years, or even one year ago. Not only will students be barely engaged, but they will not be prepared for the world that they will one day encounter. We must remember that education is designed to prepare our students for their future schools and jobs. Pretending that cell phones, tablets, and social networks do not exist is a recipe for disaster. It was this ideal that made me excited to find out that our CEP 812 lab was designed to help us explore the use of mobile devices in the classroom.

When looking through the classroom 2.0 website I found a lot of inspiration for my own teaching. My school is lucky enough to have iPads to use in our classrooms. I have used Twitter in the past with these devices, but would love to continue to do so in more engaging ways. Using the iPads to have students respond to questions and allowing them to ask their own questions could be a powerful tool. I also found that students really enjoyed posting comments just like they would at home. I had a number of students who started using Twitter because of my use in the classroom.

In the future I’d like to use Twitter to hold more engaging classroom discussions. Students could include videos, images, and quotes within their tweets. Those students who struggle sharing in large classes would be able to do so in a protected environment.

I’m also really excited to try other iPad and iPhone (or smart phone) applications. I’d love to use the devices for polling (like polleverywhere) to formatively assess my students. I have done this with CPS clickers in my current classroom, but I feel like they are almost too one-dimensional. Using mobile computers allows questions to be more detailed and the responses to be more advanced than with traditional multiple-choice questions.

Ultimately, I want to create an engaging classroom experience that teaches students skills that they will use in the future. I am aware, though, that this ambition will be met with many challenges. First and foremost, is the cost of mobile devices. While my school has a few iPads, there are never enough to go around. My district does not allow cell phones in the classroom and I am unable to fill the void in my classroom. Additionally, considering that my curriculum is highly common, it is always a challenge to get other teachers to experiment with this type of technology. While they are willing to try differing web 2.0 services, wholesale changes in content delivery are scrutinized. With hard work, however, I feel like I will eventually be able to overcome these problems.

As an experiment I used Polleverywhere (http://polleverywhere.com) to conduct this survey. Enjoy!