Cell Phone Usage in the Classroom

I found it difficult to find many teachers who actively use cell phones for classroom learning in my building. I think most teachers don't see a huge value in utilizing this technology and the benefits are not worth their time commitment. I wonder if part of this is their comfort level with this emerging teaching tool...

I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Jacob Settle for this project.  Jake is an eleven-year veteran Technology and Engineering Education teacher at my high school.  He teachers Digital Photography as well as Drafting and Design classes.  I started my informal interview by asking Jake how he incorporates cell phones into his class.  He allows students to use them for notes, calculations and taking pictures.  He is not opposed to adding additional tasks for cell phones but felt it was difficult to find meaningful purposes within his curriculum.   Jake also felt that the screen size of most cell phones was a hindrance for projects in his classes.  I have also found this to be true.  I think the biggest thing I took from my interview with Jake is his level of frustration not having any solid ideas for using cell phones in class.  I believe many teachers face this same barrier due to the newness of the technology.  It would be great to find course specific examples to use many of the tech gadgets that are emerging in our world.

Our school district fully supports using technology integration in the classroom but provides very little in terms of in-service time or suggestions.  I have a feeling this is going to change over the next several years as our school board has just approved a one-to-one initiative.  Beginning with our 4^th grade students and continuing over the next 4 years, every student in our district will be given an Ipad to use while in our district.  Teachers have been promised plenty of in-service time for preparing for this move.  I guess time will tell.  I remain cautiously optimistic that the decision to provide Ipads will have a statistical impact on student learning.   

Learning Something New

Site #1:  Jing  (http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html)

Jing seems to be a great teaching tool if you find yourself trying to teach students how to do something with a computer.  The product is a free download and leaves a small icon on the top of your desktop.  You select the desktop to either capture a screen shot or record a process on your computer.  Jing records your audio so you're able to talk your way through a demonstration with your students. You can also insert and edit text into the screen shot(see sample below).

The only downside to Jing is trying to figure out how to post the "video clips" I created.  They are save as .swf files and are played in Adobe Flash Player.  I was hoping to post a sample in my blog but spent over an hour trying to figure it out.  I may need to discuss this with our Technology expert in our building. 

Site#2:  Powtoon (http://www.powtoon.com)

PowToon is described as "the brand new Do-It-Yourself animated presentation tool that supercharges your presentations and videos! Save massive amounts of time and money by creating Presentoons that bring the WOW!-factor to product demos, business presentations, social media clips, and much more".
I felt it was worth exploring as an alternative to Powerpoint presentations.  I use powerpoint alot in my classes but want to find something a little more interactive.  I liked the fact that this site has some templates to use but not many.  If you get the paid version, it comes with more templates.  I emailed the site and recommended them including a few more templates on their free site but did not hear back from them as of this afternoon.  As I explored around the dashboard, I felt there was going to be a learning curve.  I'd like to spend more time with this site and explore some of the tutorials.  I think it has the potential to be a quality classroom tool.

Site #3: Padlet (https://padlet.com/) 

I decided to read the textbook prior to reviewing Padlet online.  This background knowledge really helped me to understand the site and ways to use it.  I found myself wandering around the other two sites spending a lot of time trying to figure things out. We all know how valuable our time is so this definitely helped.  I found it easy to create a new wall and almost immediately thought of a way to incorporate this into teaching machine safety with my classes.  This is one site I will continue to use and may try to "go live" with it with one of my classes.