At times I have been frustrated in the classroom by students distracted by their cell phones and I have wondered if there was a positive way that they could be using them in class.
Through my first assignment in the PID program, we are exploring new trends in adult education. The topic my partner and I chose was to look at how tablets and mobile phones are being used in the educational field. I was happy to take on the mobile phones and to find out what kind of positive uses there could be for these occasionally annoying devices.
In the article Mobile phones in the classroom: teachers share their tips (Drury, 2010) Nasim Jahangir, business and economics teacher shares her thoughts on using cell phones for research. She finds that it saves her photocopying and arranging computer time. If computers are down for some reason, it's good to be able to access the web through a phone.
I personally use my phone for listening to books I download from library that I used to listen to on CD. Now by using the OverDrive Media Console App, I can listen to audio books on my mobile phone. At this point, I can only get fiction from the library, but I can imagine the day when I can download audio books from colleges and universities. It is certainly possible to download articles to your mobile phone now. Some parts of this article refer to younger students, but still show the possibilities of making the mobile phone a useful tool in the classroom.
Mobile phones for are useful for keeping organized, downloading articles while in a transit situation (like on the bus) where computer access is limited. Taking snapshots with a phone can be a great way of capturing an image that you would like to use later as a reminder for a project in progress.
I will be studying mobile phone apps as they come out to see if there is anything that can be useful to my students. Although mobile phones can be a distraction in the classroom, they also can also be a productive part of current educational strategies.
Drury, Emma. Mobile Phones in the Classroom: Teachers Share Their Tips. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 29 Oct. 2010. Web. 10 Dec. 2012.
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