The more I look around at what technology has to offer ,I am amazed at what all of these instruments can do. For instance,my son records himself singing and playing his guitar on his T Mobile Sidekick phone. Today, for an assembly, he hooked his phone up to his guitar amp and used that as his speaker while he sang along with the recorded song. Maybe that is nothing big to the normal person ,but I was amazed at the quality of sound that his phone produced.
I was also thinking about what we talked about in class. The discussion was about how we could utilize the students’ cell phone technology and possibly make it a positive tool in schools. As an art teacher, I thought that the students could use their phone to take pictures for an assignment or project. I know that not a lot of students have digital cameras. Besides my four year old Verizon school issued phone that my students look at weirdly because it does not have a camera, most phones have this option. This would save me the hassle of trying to get twenty plus students to borrow and return the few digital cameras the department owns. I’m sure that we may get a few innappropriate pictures, but his this could be quickly resolved by setting strict guidelines.
One guideline could be that they may only take them out of their lockers for class. I think another idea could be a student/ teacher/parent contract or just a teacher produced pass with the teacher and students name on it. This is just a thought I had because a student sent me pictures from her phone for a project in an e mail. With her help, I was able to open and print them out.
I am definitely warming up to technology and trying to only focus on how it does make life easier.This is progress for me, because I was devastated when my phone was stolen over the summer.I lost over 182 numbers.These numbers were my only way to communicate with friends that I speak to about once a year. This was true until I had to try some web 2.0 experiences in another grad class and I discovered Facebook. Until next time…
I think that you are so right, with some guidelines and/or contracts I think we should tap into what students have and use daily. I have students who laugh at me because I am such a slow texter, but then they are the ones that stress over writing an essay. HUH? They can text fast, and have an entire conversation in text words, write e-mails or im and they can’t write an essay. Plus, I think you are right it would solve that solution about not having the resources in the classroom. Science teachers want the students to have a calculator, yet there is one built in the phone why can’t they use that?
I thought again about all of the other things the students could do with their phones. It is great that it does have the built in calculator. A lot of the phones now also have internet access which could solve the problem of schools not having enough computers or for all of the students to use.I know that we told our students they may use their phones on a future art field trip to take pictures for their class project.
p.s.I also am the worlds slowest texter!