Cell Phone Webinar

I recently watched a webinar titled "Teaching Generation Text: Harnessing the Power of Cell Phones in Education."With students all across the nation texting in class and policies banning students from their digital life-line, the topic is very timely. I chose this webinar because all practitioners in our field from elementary on up to college deal with this issue daily. With a claim of harnessing the power of cells for the classroom, I had high hopes for this Webinar. The two facilitators were Lisa Nielsen and Willyn Webb, and they went on to divide the discussion into 5 separate aspects.

1. Teacher Use of Cell Phones for Professional Purposes
2. Teacher Models Appropriate Use for Learning
3. Strengthen the Home-School Connection
4. Students Use Cell Phone for Homework
5. Students Use Cell Phones for Classwork

Throughout the webinar, Nielsen and Webb consistently list applications and tool suggestions for educational use. Some of these include:

A sample Wiffiti screen

• Poll Everywhere, a mobile response application where facilitators can create a question, generate several multiple choice options, and  watch live responses on a web address,
• Wiffiti, an online discussion board that displays anonymous text responses from students,
• Voki, a recording application that allows a person to record audio from their cell phone and save the file digitally online,
• and ChaCha, a cell phone text service that answers any question you ask.

The webinar made some great points about cell phone uses in schools. From the admin side of the house, group text messages can be used in emergency response situations, and perhaps to parents or guardians when their child is absent from school. Poll Everywhere could be fun for students to text in their answers and watch the live feed come in from peers, and Wiffiti could be used in interesting applications since the feedback is unfiltered and anonymous. An example was given for history students to Tweet in character something an important historical figure might have tweeted had it been an option. I love the creativity in that, and I could seriously see myself using this technique.

Abe's Tweet

However, sadly, not all their recommendations hit home. The webinar facilitators site a principal who was out of budget and had not implemented any emergency policies or procedures and elected to use mass texts as their only solution. I cannot say that this is a prime example of leveraging cell phones in schools. And yes, using a cell phone in the place of a stopwatch is certainly convenient and appropriate. But using your cell phone as a platform for displaying relevant photos for students seems ill-advised in the middle of a lesson plan. Using a camera to snap shots of a brainstorm makes sense, but texting parents about individual successes and areas of concern seems cumbersome and distracting on a regular basis.

Other articles, like "How to Use Cell Phones as Learning Tools," echo similar remarks in reference to Poll Everywhere and Wiffiti. Author Meg Ormiston also adds that teachers can record their lectures via audio or video for flipping the classroom. Both Ormiston and the facilitators of the webinar also speak to delivering classroom material through text messages to students who missed the day because of sickness.

I think this webinar has taught me about understanding how different technologies can [at least semi-]effectively promote student learning. By learning the basics of how to engage a cell phone for academic purposes, we are exploring the tools and technology students use on a daily basis, and that is a step in the right direction. I think this also helped me to evaluate a current technology to enhance content instruction and enhance technology literacy, especially a tool students take for granted and do not necessarily independently explore its academic potential.

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That said, I remain unconvinced. The webinar, itself a tool produced by technology, was quite ineffective. The moderators tried to offer examples of how to effectively use cell phones by engaging the audience in Poll Everywhere text messages (as well as other polling applications), by accepting pictures of those participating by using their cell cameras, and several other types of cell services. However, the whole process came off, at least to me, as messy, confusing, and just a little hokey.

This leads me to my conclusion - are we coming up with these ideas because they are genuinely useful and innovative, or are we trying to apply techniques and applications to the wrong platform? Are we revolutionizing education, or just plain forcing it? In some cases, I think we can be creative and productive with this technology, like using Twitter for history lessons. In other cases, like using your cell phone to record your entire lecture, I believe we may be forcing it. Let's realistically look at what we're trying to accomplish and apply the correct tools.