Harnessing the Power of Cell Phones in Class Lesson Plans

While many educators have never considered harnessing the power of cell phones in education, and some are downright hostile when the suggestion is brought up, there are many terrific ways cells can be used to enrich learning while empowering students to use these devices to capture knowledge in engaging ways. Educators are embracing the use of cell phones around the world, and these educators know it's not if we should be using cell phones in school, but when. These teachers are both in schools where they must think outside the ban and incorporate cells outside the school day as well as in schools and districts that empower educators to make the right decision for their classrooms. Some of these teachers are even in schools where they have partnered with phone service providers to give their students phones.

In an effort to collect ideas around how cell phones are being used to enrich instruction, I am calling upon innovative educators to contribute lesson ideasby submitting them to to http://tinyurl.com/cellphonelesson . Whether you are already doing this type of work with your students, or you are just starting to consider the possibilities, your ideas are valuable. Submitted ideas may be selected for publication in a variety of arenas (providing full credit to the author) and enabling teachers everywhere to start collecting smart lessons that incorporate using cell phones.

Below are some lessons that educators can start using now and which can serve as a guide for a lesson you may want to submit.

Literacy
Bring Poetry to Life with A Cell Phone and A Voki

Social Studies
Using Google SMS to Enrich Social Studies Instruction

Learners of Languages Other Than English
Google Voice as a Powerful "Get to Know You" and Speaking Fluency Tool

Science
Energy Transfer Lab with iPhone Clock
Science Current Event Analysis
Science Lesson: Celebrating Science Fair Projects with Twitter

I am also looking for testimonials. If you have tried any of these lessons or your own, tell us how it went at http://tinyurl.com/cellphonetestimonial .

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Facebook Recap Apps That Inspire Fun and Personalized Learning in the New Year

Facebook is at it again with two more great apps that got my innovative educational juices flowing. One is the "Facebook Status Collage" which takes the Facebook Status Cloud to a new level with highlighted status updates from across the year put into a stylish collage of your choosing.

The other is “My Year in Photos” which allows you to recap a year’s worth of pictures into a style of your choosing (i.e. modern/old fashioned) and you can even change/replace any pictures you’d like.

Take a look at how these recap apps can provide engaging, personalized opportunities for learning.

FUN IDEAS FOR USING A FACEBOOK RECAP APPS

Personal Narrative
-Have students write a memoir based on their status collages or pictures. They may pick one update/picture or build upon a theme.
-Have students create a year in review video highlighting their status collage updates or their year in photos.
-Have students create one, or a number of, personal narrative audio cast or Voki based on their status collage updates.

Team building ideas to help students learn and connect.
-Have students print out their recap app and let students identify which belongs to which student. With the photo app, you may want to count how many other schoolmates are in each student's collage.
-Have students tag their recap app in Flickr using a teacher created account and in the comment box either place a recap app narrative or use the comment box to guess who the app belongs to.
-Have student compare and contrast their recap app. They could write a narrative explaining what they have in common and might never have in common with another class member.
-Have students place their app as a note on FB and tag 20 of their friends asking them to share their thoughts perhaps with an interesting question i.e. what surprised you, stood out, or could you relate to.

Arts and Crafts
-Print the recap apps onto iron on paper and make tee shirts with students word clouds on the back. This could even be used as a fundraiser.
-Use the recap apps to decorate a "Year in Review" in photos and words...bulletin board.

The Facebook recap apps are a great tool for students to get to know each other and provides a vehicle for students to reflect upon what messages they are sharing with their friends over the past year. You may want to ask students to create a status collage of what they might want their message to be in the new year or ask them what their photos may represent. It also provides a fantastic way for students to get ideas for further sharing and publishing about the topic they are most expert in...themselves.

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My Top 20 Education Quotes from 2009

A well formed quote, like a picture, is a great method for painting detailed concepts. Each year I do my best to capture quotes that were impactful to me. Last year I shared these Ten 21st Century Education Quotes I Carry With Me. This year I am sharing another compilation of quotes and concepts I have collected over the past year through reading, events, classes, presentations and workshops. These quotes have been valuable to me and I hope they will be to other innovative educators as well. I don’t recall where I heard most of them (or even if it was me who said some of them), so I cited none of them. Oprah, The Element, Geoff Canada, and Alan November’s BLC conference in Boston were inspirations for several. Feel free to Google if you are trying to locate the source, or leave a comment with a source you know.


1) If we don't take ownership of our digital identity who will?
2) Why is the date of manufacture the most important determinant of how we group kids?
3) Do with. Not for.
4) Treat the world as a place of creation not consumption.
5) Many of the most brilliant and creative people didn't really discover what they could do and who they were until they'd left school and recovered from their education.
6) In the age of information, knowledge stops with paper. Paper is dead. You can't have a conversation with ideas on paper nor can you connect or communicate easily with others who care about those ideas.
7) Old punctuation means “stop” the new punctuation (hyperlink) means keep going.
8) The main thing the web is teaching our kids is the world is more interesting then we were ever told.
9) Because of technology, I have a network of advisors accessible to comment to and advise me at any time.
10) If you don't do something with what you learn you are a selfish twit!
11) Being in your element is when the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together.
12) When we takes notes, rather than keep it to ourselves it makes sense for others to learn from the way we are making meaning and respond and react to it.
13) When you learn something, don't keep it inside. Do something with it. Publish it! Blog it! Tweet it! Discussion Forum it!
14) Education has moved from consuming information for set answers to producing information to engage in conversation.
15) We don’t want a technology gap to become a skills gap to become an achievement gap.
16) Homework is an equity issue. If you don't have parents or guardians and technology available you are at a disadvantage.
17) Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
18) We shouldn't have tech action plans just like we shouldn't have pencil and paper action plans.
19) Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play. This turns possible underachievers into happy warriors.
20) You must connect yourself to connect your students.

I love collecting these quotes and knowing how they’ve affected others. If one of these quotes affects you or if you have a quote that has affected you that you’d like to share please do by commenting on this post.

You have read this article Education Quotes / technology quotes with the title . You can bookmark this page URL https://benncam.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-top-20-education-quotes-from-2009.html. Thanks!