Saturday, February 22, 2014

Blog 5: How Teachers Make Cell Phones Work in the Classroom



When the article started talking about using cell phones in class automatically assumed it was talking about using it for social media or texting like I used it for class.  The article brings up some interesting facts mobile learning. It apparently touches on just about every subject that any technology addresses: social media, digital citizenship, content-knowledge versus skill-building, Internet filtering and safety laws, teaching techniques, bring-your-own-device policies, school budgets. The issues associated with mobile learning get to what is already happening in class everyday. Students communicate and collaborate with each other and the teacher. They apply facts and information they’ve found to formulate or back up their ideas. This already happening In Ramsey Musallam’s A.P. Chemistry class at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, cell phones are a natural extension of the way he communicates with his students. As soon as kids walk in, Musallam sends out a text blast through Remind101.
Students usually work in groups, and when they have a question, they call him over. He uses this to advantage He arrives with iPad in hand and records his voice and his writing on the iPad, which he immediately uploads to the class website so other students can benefit from the explanations instantaneously. This way he eliminates on repeating the same question. The teacher asks students to take a multiple-choice quiz and send in their answers through a poll on their cell phones. The students’ votes are immediately displayed on the projector that’s hooked up to Musallam’s laptop. He cans see the results and see what he needs to work on or he could go on.
There another teacher who uses the phone, but he uses apps that can help him enhance in teaching as well. He Uses Socrative, an app that shows real-time poll results for both multiple-choice and short-answer quizzes, he challenges his students at the end of class to answer specific questions in order to get a broad look at whether they understood the concepts discussed that day. The tool also allows students to read each others’ responses, which allows for a deeper level of analysis. To be able to ask a question of 30 students and get response instantaneously just speeds up the learning process, rather than waiting for individual students to respond.
            The article point out the Cons out as well. An example is not everyone has a cellphone or even as much as Smartphone. 


Reflection in my classroom
Well like every article this one had some great points and on others not so much. I don’t like the idea of using Cell phones in the classroom for a lot of reasons.  First off like the article pointed out it’s excluding those who didn’t have a phone or the ability to text.  Also I was a student once and I had classmates who would” took advantage of the anonymity of the polling to text inappropriate statements. If a student decides to bring his or her cell phone to school, there is a possibility that they would use it in class while no one knows. Then, once they get used to doing that, they will start texting while they take a test. This can cause a big increase in cheating. This goes to me being a student again I would use my phone for everything else. Cell phones should not be allowed in school. I think that they are a huge distraction and interfere with the students' learning.  I will not be using them in my classroom.

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