Living in the 4th Screen

Exploring the use of mobile technology in education and life

The Perfect Lesson in the Imperfect Sense

I observed a lesson the other day in a Spanish 2 class. The lesson dealt with using the imperfect tense i.e. describing activities that one used to do in the past. Each student first had to pick two slips of paper - one with an activity on it, the other with a classmate's name on it. They then had to draw a picture of the classmate doing the activity. Using their cell phone, the students then called into the teacher's Google Voice account and described what the classmate used to do using the imperfect tense. The students, a few at a time, went out into the hallway to place the calls. Afterwards they turned in their drawings which the teacher numbered. While the students were drawing their pictures the teacher had Spanish music videos playing through her LCD projector on the front screen. The songs contained vocabulary words the students were currently learning and primarily used the imperfect tense. The next day in class the teacher played each call to the class. The students had to listen to the call and decide which picture the call was describing. If they guessed correctly the student then had to further add to the description using another original sentence in either the imperfect or the preterite, which they had studied earlier in the year. Correct answers were tallied and winners received homework passes. During day one of the lesson I asked the teacher how she would have done the audio recordings without the cell phones and she responded by saying she would not have been able to do the lesson. After thinking for a while she said she could have used digital recorders but would have had to download each file from the recorders in order to play them back to the students, which would have made it a much more time consuming process.

The take away from the lesson was that the students were immersed in the target language. They heard the language spoken by the teacher, classmates, and in the music videos. Additionally, the students had to write and speak in the target language. I must add that the teacher is an experienced teacher who utilizes technology and these types of activities on a regular basis so the students are used to it. It was a very creative lesson. The use of student cell phones with Google Voice blended very naturally into the lesson.

I want to thank Ms. Peters for her assistance in writing this post. You can click here to go to her webpage.

Cell Phone Centric Classrooms

I observed a Spanish teacher using student cell phones with Google Voice as part of the lesson. You can read about it here. After the lesson we discussed ways to increase opportunities for students to engage with the target language. Below were suggestions I sent to her after thinking about it for a day or two.

Listen and respond to voice mail message

Leave a voice mail greeting in Spanish on your Google Voice account that asks the students to respond to something you say in the greeting. The students just speak after the greeting and it is recorded as a voicemail. This could be done in class or for homework.

Listen to Google Voice greeting and write down responses
Students call your Google Voice number and listen to the greeting. The greeting would require them to write something down. This could be done in class or for homework. They could email or text you the answers

Students calling students
Have a sheet with students phone numbers on it. The phone numbers would be numbered 1- 25 (or how many students you have in class). Then tell student #1 to call student #7. You could have the arrangements set up in advance. Give the students a list of things to talk about. You could have one of the students call you. This could be used as a quick activity during class - possibly a Do Now.

Students texting students
Using the same scenario as above you could have students text Spanish sentences or responses to each other. This would give them the opportunity to write in Spanish.

Students texting Google Voice
Have students text responses or answers to your Google Voice number to be evaluated.

Text messaging to a central location
Handout a worksheet with some vocabulary words or writing prompts and have the students create sentences in Spanish. The students  would then text their sentences to Wiffiti. The responses would be anonymous and could be projected onto a screen using an LCD projector. The students could then critique each response. The same scenario could be done using Poll EveryWhere or Twitter. 

What other ideas do you have?

Twitter in the Classroom?

Below is a video about a University of Texas professor using Twitter as part of classroom discussions. Using their cell phones or computers students can post to Twitter and the professor has these responses projected onto a screen in the front of the room. Nowhere in the video does it discuss the interaction between the live in-class lecture and the Twitter posts.

I like the idea that students can post to Twitter, as this probably provides a forum for shy students to provide some input into the class discussion (A point brought out by a few of the students in the video). I also thought it was interesting how the professor participated in one of the classroom lectures via Twitter when she was out of town. The TA led the class but the professor engaged the students in her Twitter posts. That is a nice use of technology.

At the same time I find the 140 character limit of Twitter to be frustrating. The limit makes me feel like I am having a bunch of conversations that get cut off midway through the discussion. Maybe I will feel differently in time as I just started using Twitter with any regularity. I do like the real time nature of Twitter (Last night's updates on the Chile earthquake where way ahead of the mainstream media). I find the hash tags (#) and @ symbols mixed within posts to be frustrating. I have a programming background and understand characters and such, but what about the non-geek world? Can we come up with a Twitter-like experience that is real time, but allows more characters and eliminates these ( #@!&) symbols in the post?

Does Twitter or any real-time feed have a place in education?

 

Apple catching RIM in the Smartphone Race

CNET News reported that Apple has closed the gap with Research In Motion (RIM) in the percentage of market share amongst smartphone owners.

RIM holds a 40% share to Apple's 30%. Those numbers represent a 1% decline for RIM and a 5% increase for Apple.

Overall smartphone ownership is up significantly. Below is a quote from the CNET article:

When including all manufacturers, the smartphone market is clearly gaining momentum. ChangeWave reports that 39 percent of those polled in September now own a smartphone, an increase of 2 percentage points since June, but more importantly, double the ownership of consumers polled two years ago.

I believe this trend will continue and that you will see this kind of growth amongst our high school population. If I am correct what kind of implications does this have for our schools?