Monday, February 14, 2011

The Journey Begins: Cell Phones in the Classroom

Our district has recently started a cell phone pilot program with some of our teachers and students. My role in this pilot is really two fold. As the ITS, I lend support to the teachers, and as a US History teacher I get to try out some of the applications and ideas in my class.

Here are few of the tools we are using and some of the ways they are being used.
Poll Everywhere: Allows the teacher to assess understanding quickly. Poll Everywhere acts as a response system that uses cells phones.  It also allows students to send questions while the teacher lectures or while a video is being watched.

TextMarks Lite:  Students and parents sign up to the teacher's account to receive text messages with updates and reminders.

Wiffiti:  I just found out about Wiffiti last week from MaryAnn Sansonetti.  This program to me is kind of a mashup of Wallwisher and Poll Everywhere.  I've just shared this with the other teachers in our school participating in the cell phone pilot program.  We trying to see how we can incorporate Wiffiti in the class.  I can see it used as a collaborative tool in the class or as a way to get kids to respond to events such as The State of the Union Address.

Geograffiti:  Allows you to Voice Mark locations using your cell phone.  It works with the GPS feature on smart phones, but you can also Voice Mark with any cell phone.  We used this when a group of students went on a field trip.  They used GeoGraffiti to Voice Mark their location and what they were seeing on the trip.

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