Day 1: my m-learning
I think it some ways, I do a lot of m-learning. I’m a teacher in secondary school, public education, and here are some of the things I use m-learning for.
1. I have my students use their cell phones in class in order to do polls in Poll Everywhere. This is based on Eric Mazur’s Peer Instruction pedagogy.
2. I have my own Tablet PC that I use a lot in class. However, VSB (Vancouver School Board) at this time does not want people to plug their own personal devices into the schools’ lan backbone. Of course it is easy to do this and there aren’t really any repercussions if you do. However, I opt to “obey the law.” So I use my HDSPA+ cell phone to tether my tablet pc to the internet when required.
3. I take photos of student work with my phone or Playbook tablet, and upload them to our class website.
4. When time permits and I’m on public transportation, I take my Playbook with me and do MET readings and postings while on a bus or skytrain.
Great question!
Doug
Posted in: Week 11: Mobiles
schiong 8:17 am on November 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
hi Doug,
What sort of questions do you ask in your poll? Besides doing poll, what other fun stuff do you ask your students to do with their mobile devices?
Can I assume that there are no computers in your class that is why you are using mobile devices?
cheers,
Stephen
David William Price 8:27 am on November 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your post!
#1, 2 & 3 fit into the concept “m-learning is using a mobile device”
#4 fits into the concept “m-learning is learning while being mobile”
What are the possibilities of expanding #4 for your own students for your own classes? How might they take their learning into the world and collect photo/audio/video artifacts, collaborate and coordinate digitally, and use their learning with their mobiles providing performance support guidance… and then report it back to class either synchronously or later on?
Doug Smith 6:15 am on November 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes, this is an important question David, both from a point of expanding a market and from a social-political point of view.
I have had students create videos on revealing misconceptions in science, by using mobile devices to record interviews. That is just one small example. There is also the idea that we are pushing our students (knowingly or unknowingly) to have expensive mobile devices. It’s sort of creating a public/private divide in public education. In BC right now there is a push from the Minister of Education to encourage students and teachers to use and implement personal computing devices in school. It sounds great and has a lot of upsides. Unfortunately, it is easy to go to a school and see 85% of the students with mobile devices, and then travel 20min to another school and see only 10% of the students with mobile devices.
cheers
Doug
David William Price 1:02 pm on November 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Great idea with recording interviews… and a great point about the digital divide.
One of the amazing things even about the simplest mobile phones over the last few years is their ability to record audio, video and take pictures. I suspect that there are crates full of these old phones taken in by service providers that you may be able to appropriate for use in schools… perhaps you could sell the idea to providers by saying these are entry level devices.
Another point is that these device have affordances (such as recording audio) but those affordances are also available by other means (tape recorders you could pick up at the local Salvation Army). To me, the affordances are the key aspect rather than the tech itself. If kids have mobiles, we can take advantage of those affordances… but if not, they can find older tech that offers the same affordances.
For instance… I did my journalism degree using a tape recorder. These days, people use iPhones! Both ways still work.