I am using mobile phones for teacher education in South Africa.  Below is a sampling of activities that seem to be working well:
 
1.  Powerpoints on smart phones - these are preloaded on teacher phones for their viewing at times convenient to them.  One of the most popular was a powerpoint on combining topdown and bottom up strategies for teaching reading.
 
2.  SMS reminders about upcoming meetings, activities, project deadlines, available resources;  "Don't forget that there are class sets of the Global Fund for Children books that you can use for your 30 minute free reading time - they can be checked out from the Principal."
 
3.  SMS quick teaching tips -  i.e. "Don't try to talk over students' voices - ask for and expect silence from your students before you begin to talk."
 
4.  SMS multimedia messages including videoclips taken of a teacher's class using a mobile phone.  Recently I videotaped students' reading and am passing on the clips of those tapes as an assessment tool for the teacher.
 
5,.  In the US, I have used SMS Poll Everywhere with adults in a conference setting.   The question, "How could you use mobile phones in your classroom" appeared on a Powerpoint slide with a short call back   number that participants could text back their answers to.   The answers then appeared on the Powerpoint slide as they were received - and could be scrolled through easily.
 
In countries other than the US, the receiver does not pay for text messages, making SMS a more viable, sustainable teaching tool.
 
Lucy Haagen

--- On Sun, 11/1/09, David J. Rosen <djrosen123 at gmail.com> wrote:


From: David J. Rosen <djrosen123 at gmail.com>
Subject: E-learning:polling your students using mobile phone sms text messing during or outside class
To: "The Technology and Literacy Discussion List" <technology at nifl.gov>
Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 10:37 AM


Adult ed Technology colleagues,

I would like to hear from teachers who use Mobile learning (M-learning) with their adult learners, for example who use sms text message polling of their students to answer questions in class and where graphs of the results are instantly updated and displayed on a web page, or to find out what the best date and time is for a class picnic or field trip, or in other ways. If there are enough people doing this or planning to do this, I will form an online group (probably a Google or Ning group) so that these teachers can help/support/challenge each other specifically in using M-learning tools with their students.

Please email your response to me privately, letting me know how you and your students use or plan to use cellphones for education purposes, and if you would like to actively participate in such a group.

If you would like to learn more about using cellphones for student learning, see these power points developed by Susan Gaer and Liz Kolb

http://tinyurl.com/paesb4

http://tinyurl.com/5tksvw

and

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

David J. Rosen
djrosen123 at gmail.com






      
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