Use of Cell Phones
Voices From the Field
Supporting Cell Phone Use in the Classroom
Mark Geary
ell Phone use is increasing, though it is still repressed more than accepted as an educational tool in US high schools. This article discusses how cell phones have been used in a charter school for at-risk students, as well as how and why they should be used on a broader basis. Also discussed are some future possibilities for cell phone use based upon the emergence of web 2.0 applications that support mobile phone use. My first experience llsing a phone in the classroom was early in the age of the Net. I was in a school with only three phone lines going out, and I needed one of them to get online. After about four hours of crawling through the ceiling and ductwork, I was able to connect my 2400k mo dem, and use a text based lynx browser. Computers in school are now highly dependent upon the telephone in order to appropriately access the Internet, which has been integrated into most school curricula. My students were in my class, with its computers, be cause they were at-risk of failing. The school had invested a large sum of money on both hardware for the lab and the software, but the software was "skill and drill", and the students quickly learned to click through it, showing im provement, but learning nothing. That 's when we "Borrowed" the image of Snoopy on his doghouse (from the comic strip, "Peanuts"), in fighter pilot mode, and be came "ACES Around the World". The students were taught how to use the Lynx browser to find out infonna tion, and they became the school 's internet search service. Want to know how to say "Merry Christmas" in fifty lan guages? Ask an ACE student. Want to know how many miles an African elephant travels in its lifetime? Ask an ACE. The students became the information experts of the school, and it changed them. No longer were they the "dununies" of the school, i.e., knowledge challenged. They were the information experts. Their
Supporting Cell Phone Use in the Classroom
Mark Geary
ell Phone use is increasing, though it is still repressed more than accepted as an educational tool in US high schools. This article discusses how cell phones have been used in a charter school for at-risk students, as well as how and why they should be used on a broader basis. Also discussed are some future possibilities for cell phone use based upon the emergence of web 2.0 applications that support mobile phone use. My first experience llsing a phone in the classroom was early in the age of the Net. I was in a school with only three phone lines going out, and I needed one of them to get online. After about four hours of crawling through the ceiling and ductwork, I was able to connect my 2400k mo dem, and use a text based lynx browser. Computers in school are now highly dependent upon the telephone in order to appropriately access the Internet, which has been integrated into most school curricula. My students were in my class, with its computers, be cause they were at-risk of failing. The school had invested a large sum of money on both hardware for the lab and the software, but the software was "skill and drill", and the students quickly learned to click through it, showing im provement, but learning nothing. That 's when we "Borrowed" the image of Snoopy on his doghouse (from the comic strip, "Peanuts"), in fighter pilot mode, and be came "ACES Around the World". The students were taught how to use the Lynx browser to find out infonna tion, and they became the school 's internet search service. Want to know how to say "Merry Christmas" in fifty lan guages? Ask an ACE student. Want to know how many miles an African elephant travels in its lifetime? Ask an ACE. The students became the information experts of the school, and it changed them. No longer were they the "dununies" of the school, i.e., knowledge challenged. They were the information experts. Their
References: 32 Florida Educational Leadership Fall, 2008