Comments on: Six classroom activities with mobile/cell phones

By: Jackie Shanti

Jackie Shanti — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:49:40 +0000

Hi Darren,
Can I ask you a few questions for a graduate class assignment? We are discussing cellphones in the classroom and I would like to know if your school ( or school district) changed their policy to accomodate cell phone usage. Did you have any correspondence with parents prior to the project? If so please fill me in briefly. What kinds of challenges did you have ?
I appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions.
Jackie

By: Gary

Gary — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:33:15 +0000

I make my students use Mobile phones for several different exercises.

1. I’ll pick out an exercise in the book with ten questions, etc. and have the students text me the answers to five of the questions. They have the weekend to do it.
2. I have students put together a Grammar explanation and record it on the phone and Bluetooth the recording to me in class.
3. I give a pop quiz over the weekend. I may send them a text with the questions at any time during the weekend and they have one hour to text the answers back. Examples may be change the tense of the sentences or change from statement to question or negative.
They love being able to use their phones for learning especially since the official policy of the University is “NO Phones in Class.” They are learning while they feel they are getting away with something. Students love to get away with things.

By: lclandfield

lclandfield — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:00:09 +0000

Thanks for the idea, another good one that doesn’t involve making calls or anything and takes full advantage of the technology!

By: englishuniverse

englishuniverse — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:50:03 +0000

I know the list is limited to 6. Here’s one more though: get your students into pairs. Each student chooses and writes down a list of 15 tricky “words” from any menu on their phone. Studens exchange lists and try to translate the words into English. Then the students change the settings of their phone to English and check and self-correct their words. You could even turn this into a competition, if you want.

By: Marisa

Marisa — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:52:42 +0000

Hi, Lindsay!

I like your ideas about using the phone in the classroom. All of them are very practical and easy to implement.
With the use of texting, competitions can be organised. One of the students text a description of an object and the first one to guess and answer is the winner.
Regards,
Marisa (@Mtranslator in Twitter)

By: Sylwia

Sylwia — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:31:21 +0000

Here in Poland, we pay a monthly rate that includes a certain amount of “free minutes” for telephone calls, text messages, and Internet connection. Text messages can also be sent via free services on the Internet via PCs (and that’s what teenagers often do when they send me texts).

Lindsay, I see why you might be worried about the privacy issues. So far, however, I haven’t met a single person that would feel uncomfortable about it in my classes and I noticed that after the class people generally either delete the numbers or ask if they can keep them “just in case”. Anyway, this is something I’ll have to give more thought…

I’m happy you like the idea of using ring tones

By: darren elliott

darren elliott — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:07:00 +0000

An excellent point, Lindsay. It’s always been email here, rather than SMS. I think most people have a package which allows them unlimited access for a monthly fee, so it shouldn’t matter to add any more. But it is very important that everybody should be able to take part, so everything we do can be done from the university computer room. I just want to give them the freedom to do it on the train on the way to school if they want to. I know of someone who is delivering daily readings to his students via mobile phone email… a great idea I want to explore. Those little screens are not so little to the young….

By: lclandfield

lclandfield — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:42:16 +0000

Thanks Karenne, I imagine that helps make the difference. I think Spain is slowly getting there, and when they do I’ll certainly be happier. The smartphones are a different thing though, and in my current class only two people have them (including me, with an iTouch which isn’t even a phone).

By: Karenne Sylvester

Karenne Sylvester — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:38:17 +0000

We mostly have flat rates here in Germany or, in my case, their companies are paying for the phone charges e.g. – when we google with a BlackBerry for an answer.

By: lclandfield

lclandfield — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:30:52 +0000

Twentieth, or twenty-first? Thanks for the comment, and you’re quite right they are a bit old hat these ideas. But even old hats can sometimes look quite snazzy .-)

One question I have, and perhaps it’s because I’m in Spain which has among the highest phone rates in Europe, is who pays for the calls/connections etc for activities involving phones and classroom activities?
Apart from the privacy issue of asking students to exchange their phone numbers, the idea of asking them to spend extra money to do a class activity might stick in their throats.

To use my phone to connect to the internet costs me money every minute. There are some flat rate schemes coming out now but many students don’t have them here.

What’s it like where you are? Does everybody have free internet and text messaging on their phones or maybe they don’t mind spending money on a classroom activity which makes “full use of the technology in their pockets”? I’m willing to go further, just want to get around that hurdle.