K12 Online Conference

The conference I listened to was "Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools" by Liz Kolb. (A link to this online presentation can be found on my blog under the Projects title)

NOTES FROM THE CONFERENCE:
She has a corresponding powerpoint to go with her spoken presentation...really helpful!!!

1. Audio recording: the teacher could do so and then post lectures online for students to access; the student could record for their own personal reference
- cell recording could be transfered into podcasts (gabcast, gcast, hipcast, evoca) 3 of which are free. it transfers your cell data into a podcast. - no uploading, no hassle. you can set up your account to automatically post to your blog, and many other cool features.
she goes through one of the accounts step by step; the one she used had up to 60 minutes available per recording

2. Phone conferencing (with up to 200 people, depending on the program and account you use)
TalkShoe and FreeConferencePro are two available accounts that do this

3. Note taking (Jott, Brain cast, etc) - they are correlating online programs - either audio or the program will transfer the vocals to typed text.

4. Teachers are also going out and recording authors reading their own works, etc and then playing them for their classes as a sort of "interactive classroom experience"

5. Having kids use their cell phones as research or homework tools - conducting and recording interviews, recording library research, etc.

6. Giving quizzes, etc. over the phone - by having kids call in to the teacher's phone (and thus the program the teacher is linked to) and then follow the prerecorded instructions.

7. Photo blogging (using your camera feature on the cell phone) - using programs like Flickr and Bubbleshare to create slideshows, etc.

8. Video recording - Eyespot, Jumpcut, YouTube, etc are programs that students and teachers alike can use to prepare video presentations for the classroom. This could be useful for classroom projects, especially if the school does not have any available for classroom use.

9. She suggests creating ringtones (as a class project) where the ringtone is classroom information

10. Sending texts: as class reminders, especially (TextForFree, Reactee, etc.)

11. Field trip tools

12. Phone Search Tools (Dictionaries, encyclopedias, calculator, Internet on the phone, etc)

13. Calendar, Notepad, etc - using the calendar and notepad features on cell phones to help organize students and encourage time management and prioritization


* many of these things she outlined, however, are things for the teacher to do...except for perhaps the recording aspects
*many of these programs offer landline options for those who do not have cell phone access
* all of these programs have privacy capabilities and other options available

This was a fairly long presentation, and also fairly redundant, since many of the programs and options she talked about were linked or revolved arund the same topic, such as taking notes or recording lessons. One of the things I had a hard time with was getting my mind around the classroom settings where this type of learning may be useful. I could see it, perhaps, in a newspaper, journalism, photography, or research class...and perhaps even in a very lecture-laden class setting as a recording tool, but in the average everyday class setting, this may prove to be more trouble than it is worth. For myself, I lean more towards the interaction and discussion kind of teaching and class setting, so I really would not have much need for these programs. I think it is important for kids to learn good, solid note-taking skils, and if we give them technological "outs" they will never learn. I also think that this is something where students (and teachers too) could spend more time developing and using these programs that it may cut into time actually spent learning in the classroom.