Last year a few of our teachers successfully used Google Voice in some of our World Language Classrooms. They use Google Voice to quickly capture audio recordings of the students speaking in the target language. The use of student cell phones and Google Voice allows the teachers to provide opportunities for students to improve their oral proficiency and creates a forum for the teacher to assess that ability. 

Collegiate High School Principal Tracie Rodriguez said the science and English departments use texting the most with class assignments. Teachers can choose whether they want students to text them. The trend began with a student asking if it would be OK for them to text their teacher, she said.

She said at one time students were coming to class with incomplete assignments and texting was a way for the students to feel comfortable with getting in touch with teachers outside of class, she said.

The school does still enforce a rule that cell phones can’t be used in class unless approved beforehand as part of a class assignment or in an emergency, she said.

In addition, parents haven’t expressed concerns about their student’s cell phone bills or texting charges, she said.

According to a post on Fast Company that quotes a Nielsen survey, one in five students has a cell phone by the time they are 8-years-old. Fifty percent of 10-year-olds and seventy-five percent of 12-year-olds have their own cell phone. The average age when children get their own cell phone is now down to 9.7 years. The average age to borrow a cell phone is now at 8-years-old.

What are these kids doing on their cell phones besides sending text messages? The Nielsen survey says:

...your kids are looking for the latest movies and music releases, playing games, and using social networks. The cell phone, in other words, is way more of a communications and entertainment hub for younger people than older people. Which makes sense--kids spend more time socializing, even when all they have is a rotary dial phone with a curly cord.

These survey results only underscore my basic premise that the onsluaght of cell phones is inevitable. We need to continue to educate students on how to use their cell phones in a socially responsable way.

via CellPhonesInLearning

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?

Tacticality Software has built three great programs for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The first is called Countby and helps Pre-K and Kindergarten students count to 100. The next app is called Timesby and it helps students practice multiplication on all numbers up through the number 9. The final app is called Sentence Spin. This app helps students become better readers, writers, and communicators. Follow the link above to Tacticality Software to read about the apps.

This past week one of the teachers in our World Language Department used student cell phones and ipadio to record pairs of students having a conversation about a famous Mexican painting. Prior to the activity the teacher paired the students off and had them write a dialog in Spanish talking about the Mexican painting. On the day of the activity the students paired off around the room and using one cell phone dialed into ipadio, entered the 4-digit access code, and began talking. When they were finished they just hung up the phone. Each of the recordings were saved in the teachers private ipadio account. Later that day the teacher listened to the conversations and assessed each student's performance.

After the class when I spoke with the teacher she told me that she had the students do the recording in groups at a time so that she did not have 20+ students talking at once. She said that doing the phone calls took less time than she planned. She had about 20 recordings and all but two worked as planned. One recording was nothing but static and the other one was just not that clear. The next day she had those students redo the activity.

The lesson required the students to study the culture of Mexico (painting), use correct grammar in writing the script, and use proper pronunciation in speaking the target language. Additionally, the activity afforded the students the opportunity to perform an oral activity with just one of their peers while talking on a cell phone (something they are quite comfortable with) as opposed to doing it in front of the whole class. The take away for the teacher was that she could listen to the recordings at her leisure and replay the conversations as much as needed to properly assess the student's performance. This scenario is much better than when the teacher has to assess the students live when they perform in front of the class. In the live scenario the teacher has to asses both students at the same time and does not have the option to replay the conversation.The end result is a much better assessment of the students speaking ability. The teacher can provide much richer feedback and even replay the recording for the student. The students enjoyed the activity and were eager to listen to themselves speaking.

I believe this activity demonstrates an innovative way to use student cell phones within the confines of the classroom and is an example of technology being used to accomplish something that would not be possible without the technology. Did I mention that the activity used none of the schools technology resources?

A big thank you to Liz Kolb for sharing about ipadio on her podcast and to James O'Malley from ipadio for setting up the "open channel" to make the multiple phone calls possible. Thank you also to the brave teacher in our world language department who was willing to use student cell phones in the classroom.

 Want to send text message reminders to your students but don't want them to know your cell phone number? Use Outlook (or any email program). You can send a text message to any cell phone via your email account. To send the text enter the student's phone number in the address bar and add the proper suffix for the students cell phone carrier and the email will arrive on their phone as a text message. If a student's cell phone number is 888-123-4567 for example, and they use Verizon as their phone carrier, you would put 8881234567@vtext.com in the address bar for the email. Put in a subject in the subject line and type out a short message in the body of the email and hit send. This works with all phone carriers. Below is a list of all the extensions for all the major phone carriers.