LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - While many young tech wizards strive to invent the next iPad, Umar Saif is working to bring Internet-style networking to millions of Pakistanis who don't have access to the Web. He could shake up the country's politics in the process.
From: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16034/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=HnwqZPHZ

No. They can't. There is no legal floodwall even remotely big enough to stop this one.  

Yet, we keep trying ... and causing ourselves even more policy trouble in the effort because as we are trying to build the wall higher and stronger we are also trying to bail out the water already on the other side. 

Is it time to switch tactics yet? Is it time to go with the flow and help direct the waters in responsible directions? We legal types are the ones that need to let administrators know when it is appropriate to stop trying to plug the dam. That is our responsibility as their advisors. 

Meanwhile, the kids are waiting for us ...

I took the picture above at the Walgreens where I just picked up a prescription. What a great idea and a good use of mobile technology.

" ... that proper education about appropriate online behavior and digital media consumption can help children evaluate potential online risks. The group suggested that the government “promote nationwide education in digital citizenship and media literacy as the cornerstone of internet safety.”

 

Recommendations include creating a web-based clearinghouse of online safety education research, avoiding scare tactics, promoting digital citizenship at all grade levels, establishing industry best practices for effective internet safety education programs, and looking to young people as experts in the online and digital media arenas by involving them in risk-prevention education.

 

Awareness efforts should be ongoing, and stakeholders should “promote greater transparency for parents as to what sort of content and information will be accessible and recorded with a given product when their child is online,” recommended a subcommittee on parental controls and child protection technology.

 

Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project reports the following:

12% of all students say they can have their cellphones at school at any time.

62% of all students say they can have their cellphones in school, just not in class.

24% of teenagers attend schools that ban all cellphones from school grounds.
• 65% of cellphone-owning teenagers at schools that completely ban phones bring their phones to school every day.
• 58% of cellphone-owning teenagers at schools that ban phones have sent a text message during class.

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 new study conducted by the University of Maryland students are "unable to be without their media links to the world". The study, "24 Hours: Unplugged," asked 200 college students to abstain from all forms of media for 24 hours. After completing their 24 hour media fast they blogged about their experiences. Below are some snippets from the study:

American college students today are addicted to media, describing their feelings when they have to abstain from using media in literally the same terms associated with drug and alcohol addictions: In withdrawal, Frantically craving, Very anxious, Extremely antsy, Miserable, Jittery, Crazy.

A new study out today from the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) at the University of Maryland, concludes that most college students are not just unwilling, but functionally unable to be without their media links to the world. "I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening," said one person in the study. "I feel like most people these days are in a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin."

"Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort," wrote one student. "When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable."

Follow the link to read more of the article. I was surprised by the strong reactions from the students. What does this mean for the future of the students we will face in the classroom? In what ways do we need to reach them?

Based on a survey and focus groups conducted with teenagers between 12 and 17, Pew found that text messaging is by far the most common way that kids communicate with each other, more than chatting on the phone, e-mailing, using social-networking sites, or talking face to face.

More than 75 percent of teens now own cell phones, notes Pew, up from just 45 percent in 2004. Around 72 percent of all teens, or 88 percent of teens who own mobile phones, use text messages to communicate. That marks a big jump from 2006 when only 51 percent of teens texted on their phones.

Teachers aren't wild about the use of cell phones either, and as a result, many schools limit or ban their use. Around 24 percent of teens said their school bans all cell phones from the campus entirely, while 62 percent said they're allowed to bring a phone to school but not into the classroom.

But 65 percent of teens whose schools exclude cell phones from campus said they bring them anyway, and 58 percent of them said they've sent text messages in class despite the ban. Meanwhile, kids have come up with ways to avoid having their phones taken away. One teen surveyed said he has a real phone and a fake phone so that if the teacher catches him, he can give her the fake phone.

This research underscores what I have been saying for the past year. Students love their cell phones and regardless of the prohibitions schools put on their phones they are using them anyway during the school day. Schools need to accept this reality and start embracing student cell phones and using them as part of the instructional activities.

This post on the Mobile Learner blog talks about ways to get instant feedback from students during a lesson. The following is from the article:

This is where the text message comes in.  Text messaging has the advantage of being a private way for students to provide feedback.  It allows for an instructional correspondence to take place and allows the teacher to know who is understanding the material and who is not. Of course, teacher may be very uncomfortable sharing their phone number with students and this is a very legitimate concern.  This is where services such as Polleverywhere come in.  This pay-service allows teacher to poll students using text messaging to an intermediary so that neither the teacher nor the student has to share their personal information with each other.

I think this is a great idea. I basically said the same thing last week in my Cell Phone Centric Classroom post, though I recommended using Google Voice. Using Google Voice a teacher does not have to give their cell phone number to the students, so it keeps their personal number private. Follow the link above to read the entire article.

This article on Scholastic.com gives advice on how to handle cell phones in the classroom. What I found interesting was the section on using cell phones as part of the lesson. Below is an excerpt from the article:

DO Use Texting to Teach Summarizing
Jennifer Kuszmerski, a language arts teacher, uses text messaging to invite students to summarize what they've learned in a given class period. To close a lesson, ask students, "If you had to text what you learned today to one of your friends, what would you say?" "Texts are short bursts of information that get to the point quickly, and students understand that," says Kuszmerski. "If a student can summarize what he or she learned in a sentence or two, it's easy to see if your objective has been met for the day."

DO Use Texting to Discuss Language
To teach students the formal rules of writing, write a sentence on the board, such as "Can you come to my Valentine's Day party?" Ask students to translate the sentence into a text message (i.e., "v-day party 2-nite u should come"). Then, ask them to rewrite that same sentence as if it were in an e-mail to a teacher. ("Ms. Walker, would you like to come to my Valentine's Day party on Thursday night?") Considering audience and revising for tone teaches kids that different forms of writing are appropriate at different times. Marika Dietsch, a seventh-grade language arts teacher, also uses text-speak to demonstrate how language evolves. "My students can't believe that Shakespeare is considered modern English!" says Dietsch. "We talk about how language changes over time, and they make the connection to the abbreviations they use for texting."

I think these are some creative ways to use cell phones as part of a lesson. Has anyone else used texting in this way or in some other way to support a particular lesson? Follow the link above to read the full article.

The BBC's education service Janala is delivering English lessons via mobile phones to users in Bangladesh. Since the service was launched in November 2009, over 1 million lessons have been accessed. Bangladesh has 50 million mobile users within it's borders. The service offers hundreds of three-minute audio lessons and SMS (Text) quizzes to the users for a nominal fee. The service is accessed by dialing "3000" and choosing from the menu of options. The BBC has a website that compliments the service and gives users free access to content.

The goal of the BBC in creating the service was to bring English language learning to the masses because it is the international language of business.

More than two-thirds of people who use the beginners' service return, which is impressive considering the 5% "return rate" for mobile products in Bangladesh. The BBC said overall 39% of callers returned to Janala.

An impressive majority of Bangladeshis – 84% – consider English essential to securing a good job and educating their children, according to a BBC survey.

"We knew demand for English was strong in Bangladesh, but the response to BBC Janala has been nothing short of phenomenal," said Chamberlain.

"The growth of mobile is clearly creating an opportunity to provide access to education in a way simply not possible before."

The last quote from the article is the most compelling. The technology is providing a service that would be impossible without the technology. This is just one of many examples I have read about over the last few months that highlights how mobile phones are being used to educate people in very poor countries where internet access via a computer is not the norm or cost prohibitive.

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?