Mobiles in the Classroom (u04a1)

After reaching out to several different teacher friends about their use of cell phones in the classroom, I was coming up with a pretty blank canvas. I have one friend, Mrs. Fillion, who teaches high school learning support, and she uses cell phones with students as part of their IEP’s in order to keep them organized (calendar, alarms, etc.) and to give them initiative in starting tasks. Another teacher friend, Amy, uses her personal cell phone alarm for switching subjects and as a timer in her elementary classroom. She said that she’d often use a fun song as the ringtone and the kids loved it!

All that to say, I was discouraged when I realized this week that there is a great deal of potential with cell phones in the classroom, but many teachers are not even beginning to tap into that – especially at the elementary level. An “aha” moment clicked for me, though, when I realized that we were talking about mobile devices (not just cell phones) this week. I immediately went online and looked up the definition of mobile devices. When you Google “mobile devices” the articles and image searches show cell phones, tablets, a variety of e-readers, and mp3 players! It made me feel a little bit better to hear from teachers who are using mobile devices.

I decided to then zone in on conversations I’ve had with the teachers in my building who are utilizing iPads. This past school year was our first experience, and it was definitely a learning process. As with any new technology being introduced to a school district, there are kinks along the way! The biggest hurdle was with district policy to ensure proper monitored usage and student safety. Being a K-3 building, the frustration I heard most was that our kids had to log-in to use the browser every time they picked up an iPad. It seemed to be taking away the ease of use of our devices. The other hurdle that had to be overcome was the app choosing, purchasing, and installation process. Teachers were finding great apps at home on their personal devices, but were unable to quickly transfer that to their classroom iPads. The district still requires all apps to be preapproved and pushed out at an allocated time from the IT department.

The teachers I chatted with range in age from 25-55. That really reminded me that age, technology usage experience, and years of teaching have little to do with technology implementation in the K-3 classrooms. Willingness to learn, try, and probably flounder are the biggest factors in bringing our students up around technology. How are these teachers using mobile devices, then? There are Kindles in classrooms as special rewards to read great books on. iPads are being utilized independently for math and language arts centers. Students are also using them to take pictures, create digital stories, and make Screen Chomp videos to share with their parents. iPods are being utilized as listening centers to save on space and specificity of books that wasn’t available with books on tape or CD and also because of their relevancy and student buy-in.

So what did I pull from this week? First off, I realized that I had a very limited view of “mobile devices”. Secondly, I realized that parents and administration are very supportive and encouraging of the various technology uses. They’ve adapted to the fact that the way we “do” school isn’t now what it always was. I need to take more of that mindset and utilize what my students are already using on a daily basis to support classroom instruction. I also learned that technology implementation is much more difficult of a transition for the adults than it is the kiddos. Kids are used to having to trouble shoot, seeing a new version what seems like every 3 days, and learning to touch everything to figure out how to make it do what you really wanted to. Finally, I learned that I need to think outside the box when it comes to using mobiles. In much the same way that an iPod is just a music player anymore, phones are not just phones. How willing am I to be creative and try something new?

***A special thanks this week to Terry Fillion, Amy Boot, and several of my Ore Valley colleagues for sharing their thoughts, frustrations, and ideas!***