Polling by Cell Phone – Can We Completely By-Pass Clickers?

Check out Poll Everywhere, a site where anyone can create a poll and the individuals being polled can use their cell phone to record responses. Here is yet another reason to incorporate handheld technology that students already possess into the classroom rather that spending precious dollars on clickers. Granted, currently, only the first 100 votes are free but I’m sure that as time goes by, other services will appear offering either free service or better price plans. In the mean time, teachers/school can “purchase votes” at reasonable prices and only when they are needed (as of this writing, 100 votes can be purchased for $16.30, 500 votes can be purchased for $75 dollars). This contrasts from purchasing clicker devices. I had quite a difficult time finding prices for the hardware on one manufacturer’s site (which will remain nameless) – they do mention that rentals can cost $5 per clicker for a one day event. That’s $150 for a class of 30 for one day! The other issue is hardware – it needs be stored and, like any hardware, needs to be replaced over time. When using a cell phone, most parents have already taken care of the hardware costs. For those students who do not have a cell phone, they can place their votes via a school computer.

The other selling point is that Poll Everywhere does not require software installation, saving the teachers massive frustrations when dealing with school district IT departments and hardware security. Results are displayed in a browser and can be inserted into MS PowerPoint. Students send replies via SMS and results can be used in a variety of ways – Data Management in a Mathematics classroom, social attitudes in a social studies classroom, etc. Having the first 100 votes free allows teachers to try out the service before committing.

It’s not that I am challenging the use of clicker hardware. I just feel that students already have interactive devices in their pockets that we can access to achieve a multitude of learning goals, saving money that we would have spent on other technologies to strengthen school networks, upgrade computer hardware and software, etc. Mobile learning means freedom to learn wherever one finds themselves and whenever it is convenient. With cell phones, even students who are absent can participate in the poll; can’t do that with a clicker. Results are displayed in a browser so it can be viewed on any devices that can access the Internet and from anywhere; can’t do that either with a clicker as software is installed locally and only the local machine can access the data.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Added on February 15, 2008

The video tutorial on incorportaing a polling into a PowerPoint 2007 Slide Show…

…and for PowerPoint 2003:

Recording Lessons with a Free Copy of Camtasia 3.1.2

Mobile learning can take on various forms and one of those forms can be making available recordings of lessons. Often, it is quite useful for a teacher to record screen captures on a computer and share the lesson with students for on-demand viewing on a handheld device or computer. Product training departments of software companies have done this for years. Providing recorded video instruction and making the file available for students in a variety of formats is a powerful way in which teachers can help students learn and reinforce their learning.

The issue is finding software at affordable prices. Personally, I like to find and use legal copies of free software as teachers do not necessarily have the resources to purchase licenses for expensive screen capture software. One piece of open source software that I’ve used is CamStudio. However, if someone prefers commercial software, TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia, is now offering version 3.1.3 of their screen capture software for free! As of this writing, TechSmith is selling Camtasia version 5. So while the software is not necessarily the most up-to-date, for a teacher, this is a great bargain.

You can download the software for free from the TechSmith website:

Download Camtasia 3.1.2

TechSmith will e-mail a free software key:

Camtasia Software Key

Opera Mini and Mobile Browsing

I’ve just had a digital epiphany – you know the feeling – when you discover that one piece of hardware or software that answers all of your prayers. That epiphany came last night when I discovered for the first time the Opera Mini browser for handheld devices.

I know that this browser is not new but I didn’t realize that it could be downloaded and installed freely on many handheld devices (including cell phones, PDA’s and smart phones). I currently own a Blackberry Pearl and decided to install the browser to see how it worked. WOW! am I ever impressed! The browser not only allows for viewing web pages as they look on the web, but it automatically adjusts the size and dimensions of the webpage to suit the smaller screen with navigation tools that are very easy to use. Websites first appear zoomed out and there is a mouse with a square focal area. Zooming in varies depending on the device but on my Pearl, simple pressing the #5 key zoomed the page to the location of the focal area and to a readable level. I tried the browser on a number of different website such as newspaper websites, mapping websites, Wikipedia and even our district’s web report card application. My Pearl does not have WiFi so I was downloading using my phone’s EDGE service – browsing this way can become costly as Blackberry data plans are not limitless but the Opera Mini does compress webpages allowing for reasonable data usage. Having WiFi on a handheld device, such as a PDA, negates this problem.

As I begin to get passed some of my initial enthusiasm, and I begin to think of classroom applications, many student learning possibilities come to mind. For students, access to the Internet means access to the world’s largest database. Students can use Wikipedia and other online tools to research content for assignments or projects. Students can create content by blogging or podcasting through their handheld devices. Students can also connect and collaborate through their mobile devices by utilizing online collaboration tools. The best part is that if the handheld device is WiFi capable, all this can be accomplished without the worry of expensive data charges.

Can teachers and administrators utilize this as well? My answer would be a definite yes and the uses go beyond just e-mail. Just as with students, teachers and administrators can access online collaboration tools to collaborate with their local or global peers. Teachers can access and evaluate student work whenever and wherever it is convenient for them if their student’s work is posted online. My ability to access our district’s reporting applications opens up the potential of filling out forms or completing report through a handheld device. I realize that you may be shaking your head at the last point but I think that this is not the result of the impossibility of the idea but due to the fact that the idea is so new and that we don’t normally associate handheld devices with this sort of work. Just think about it – really affordable computers for every student with real power to access applications and the internet. Students can even access productivity tools as web services such as Zoho, Thinkfree and Google docs are now available online.

Students can already type at blazing speeds thanks to text messaging. Typing out a short assignment is not that much of a stretch.

RD

United Streaming and the iPod

Here is an updated version of my July 13th, 2007 blog post from my other blog. I post it here as well because I think that it belongs here more than it does on the other blog.

Want to get the most out of your students by incorporating the gadgets that your students already have? Want to turn those cool objects into mobile learning platforms? Here’s an idea: download educational video from Unitedstreaming and upload it to your (or your students’) video iPod! For those who do not know, Unitedstreaming is an educational video site that is jam packed full of videos, most of them Discovery channel videos. There are videos for all subject areas, for all grade levels, and even PD videos for teachers. While this is a site that requires a paid registration, talk to you school or district administration as they may likely have something in place with Unitedstreaming already.

To access these videos on your iPod, you will require at least 5th generation iPod or a 3rd generation iPod Nano as only these can handle video (the 1st and 2nd generation iPod Nano cannot play video!). You can download the video in Quicktime movie format or in Windows media format. If you or your students are using a Mac, download the Quicktime movie, upload your movie to you iTunes library and viola, you or your students have a created a mobile learning environment. If using a PC, you will likely have to convert the file to m4v or mov format. To do this, you can use one of the many free conversion tools available – one I recommend is Zamzar.

The idea is to make learning enjoyable, fun, multi-sensory and mobile. While I have recently read a scathing article discussing the pitfalls of the iPodification of education called “Socrates in Earpods – The IPodification of Education“, I would argue that if learning is fun and accessible to students, then they will learn. The attitude that I often hear, and tones of it is found in the above article as well, that ‘this is the way I have always taught and it has always worked for my students’ is quite disturbing to me. Today’s society is all about digital communication and the digital communication devices. For those of who have taught 20-30 years, think of how different society was when you first started teaching and how different your students are now. Yet on average, our classrooms run like they did 100 years ago, using learning models that were appropriate for teaching students who would live in an industrial society of mass production and assembly line manufacturing. Today’s students do not, and will not live in that world. Multi-modal and multi-sensory learning are crucial in today’s education of students. True, multi-sensory learning also includes tactile learning and tactile learning is important as well. I am not advocating that students should learn everything on the iPod. However, if we can utilize these devices on more of a regular basis in our classes, it will also incorporate another dimension into learning and make it mobile. Fun learning is still learning. Education system these days try to instill the concept of life-long learning into students. What better way to do this than to demonstrate to them that learning doesn’t just happen at school but ultimately happens everywhere! Let’s make our classes, especially our history classes, fun and enjoyable learning places by incorporating modern tools into today’s teaching.

Your thoughts?

Portable Radio.ca – Mobile Learning and Podcasting

Now that the ECOO conference is over and I begin to reflect back at all the things that I’ve learned, one thing that sticks out is the fact that Mobile Learning was not even on the radar at this large Canadian educational conference. There was no real Mobile Learning presence at either Leading Learning 2007 nor at ECOO 2007. I think that it is about time this conversation begins within these gatherings. I’ve decided to start working on a Mobile Learning presentation for Leading Learning 2008.

One session that I attended today that I found very interesting was presented by Nathan Toft and Jane Smith at A. Lorne Cassidy Elementary School, in Stittsville, Ontario, Canada on their class podcast – PortableRadio.ca. These two are elementary teachers teach students in the junior level and podcast with their students. However, not only are they using podcasting to teach curriculum expectations but they do it from portables! Yes, you’ve read correctly – podcasting from portables! Nathan and Jane have turned their teaching spaces into a broadcast centre for their students! Their presentation reaffirmed to me that educational technology can be incorporated into classrooms in meaningful ways. I look forward to keeping in touch with Nathan and Jane as they continue to share their successes with me and other educators across the globe. Check out their podcast – their work is quite inspirational!

Now what does this have to do with mobile learning? Actually, quite a bit. While handheld devices serve as the medium to create and consume content, podcasts can serve as form of content presentation. Students can use podcasting to both create and interact with content and the digital devices can serve as the medium to make this content “portable”. Nathan and Jane alluded to this in their presentation, making reference to the fact that anyone who subscribes to their podcast can listen to it on their mp3 player.

The ideas that podcasting and portable devices work hand-in-hand is definitely not new but I think we need to explore this in much more depth within education. Colleges and universities (almost all of which are American!) are already using podcasting as a way to make lectures mobile for students but I have yet to see, in any significant way, podcasts from students at this level. Therefore, the content on iTunesU is still very one dimential as most, of not all, the content is teacher created. In K-12, we see a much more balanced use with both teachers and students publishing educational podcasts yet not at the same level of commitment as in Colleges and Universities.

Will podcasting continue to evolve and become a largely accepted delivery method in education and in the mobile world?  Will it be incorporated on a wider scale in educational systems in North America and around the world?

It’s Not About the Tools! It’s About Improving Student Learning!

I am participating in the 2007 ECOO conference in Mississauga, Ontario and have had a wonderful first day. Quentin D’Souza and I presented our “Web 2.0: Promises and Potentials” presentation today and I feel that it went pretty well.

The sessions that I attended today were quite an eye opening. One of those sessions included Gary Stager and his “If Blogging is the Answer, What’s the Question?” presentation. While I respect his argument that teachers are not necessarily using digital tools to improve student learning, I felt that the tone of the presentation left the impression that digital tools were not worth the investment in time or money (although that is not necessarily what he said). I did raise my concerns with Gary this during the presentation, especially when he was discussing his opinion that Digital Storytelling is not necessarily a constructive learning tool in that it leads teachers to encourage short, choppy work.

This got me thinking about the use of mobile tools in the classroom. I think in education, we sometimes focus too much on the tools themselves that we forget that education is not about the tools, but about improving student learning. My gut feeling is that when a teacher tries to use an iPod or a cell phone as the sole tool for his/her teaching, the technology will fail in it’s ability to help students learn better. Sometimes paper and pencil are needed help students learn certain skills or curricular concepts. However, sometimes paper and pencil are not appropriate either and a student can learn a concept better on an iPod or when recording a podcast on their mobile phone. I think that today’s sessions helped me to refocus and realize that the tools are just tools, regardless if they are flashy or not, and that we need to select the appropriate tool for the appropriate learning task.

That having been said, I think we still have a long way to go until teachers on a larger scale begin to select an iPod, cell phone, PDA or other “cool” handheld devices as the tool of choice to help improve student learning. Just as there is a place for paper and pencil, there is also a place for digital devices in learning. Perhaps my job here is to help teachers understand how handheld devices can be used to improve students learning. I often hear that technology engages students. That’s fine if the engagement is the results from the learning because students are feeling engaged as they create knowledge in a fun and exciting way.  However, if that engagement is simply based on that WOW factor that they are using an iPod in class, then when that WOW feeling fades, so will the interest in using that handheld device.

So I guess my question is this – where do go? There are so many impediments (district policies, negative propaganda for the media, resistive attitudes) yet so much potential.

Thoughts?

Reading eTexts on Your Cell Phone

 

Here is a blog post that I made in July 2007 on my other blog. I post it here as it is an excellent tool that can be harness for free!

While the existence of a web 2.0 application that allows cell phone users to download free digital ebooks to the mobile phone is not new, a service that I have recently used is simply amazing. It’s called Wattpad and it is the best service I have seen so far.

First of all, what’s free? The answer is just about everything! The application itself (which is downloaded and installed on ones cell phone, and all texts downloaded from it’s site are all free. What’s not? There is always the costs of downloading content through your web browser that is charged by your service provider. I am currently subscribed with Rogers Wireless and find the the 5 cent/kb charge is just way too expensive. However, for $5/month, Rogers has a plan that includes a 5MB worth of downloaded content and that should be plenty if you maintain a reasonable level of downloading activity. After all, WAP service on cell phones is text based so the file sizes are small. I’m sure that iPhone will change all of that but as of this writing, the iPhone is only available in the US so it may be still some time before WAP goes the way of the dodo. Nevertheless, for a very low cost, anyone can download ebooks to their cell phone.

How about the content? Well this is the best part! Unlike other services, such as ManyBooks, the site includes more than just public domain content. For example, I downloaded a copy of my favorite novel of all time, George Orwell’s 1984, to my cell phone and that novel is at least 25 years away from being made open to the public domain granted, this is a little dangerous when used with students). In addition, anyone can upload content to the site! This is the power of Wattpad as not only are public domain texts available for the mobile reader/learner, but any text is – be it published text or otherwise.

Just think of the possibilities:

- Students downloading etexts from the site for free saving school districts money in purchasing expensive textbooks; savings that can be used to purchase more learning technology

- Students using their cell phones as a mobile learning devices, allowing them to read any textual learning materials from virtually anywhere

- Students can upload assignments to the site and provide the teacher with a Wattcode* by which they can download the written assignment to their computer or cell phone

- Teachers can upload textual learning resources for students and provide students with the Wattcode* by which they can download learning materials to their cell phones

*A Wattcode is a reference number used by the service to identify the text

In addition to all of this, the application itself looks nice, works well, and is easy to use. Users can customize colours of both backgrounds and text. When reading a text, there are many keypad shortcuts that the user can utilize. For example, clicking down on the phone’s menu selector to move the text down or clicking a preset key on the phone to allow the text to scroll automatically like a TelePrompter. Lastly, the user has the option to read the text directly from the Wattpad network or to download the text directly to their cell phone for reading without the browser. What happens when someone calls you while you are reading? When this happened to me, I was happy to note that the call took the first priority and whether or not I accepted the call, when I return to my text, Wattpad always kept my place for me so I never had to figure out where I left off in the text.

What a wonderful application – most definitely worth the look!

A Question of Definition…

What the heck is mobile learning anyway? In order to get frame the conversation in this blog, I think that it is important that we first develop a mental framework for what it is that we are talking about in the first place. First of all, we need to clarify terms. Mobile learning is sometimes referred to mLearning or m-Learning or Mobile eLearning. Personally, I want to stay away from these terms because I think we have enough acronyms in education and adding another will just continue this legacy of needless jargon and unnecessary confusion. By their very nature, professional acronyms excludes wider a understanding and conversation as only a select group of individuals are privy to their meaning. I’ve overheard a number of parent/teacher conversations iover the years where the teacher is regurgitating a number of acronyms and the parent nods with apparent comprehension but ultimately has no clue as to what the teacher is saying. This, however, is for another time…

So I’m going to call it what it is – Mobile Learning. So what does Mobile Learning mean? I don’t know whether we can quantify a specific definition that is all encompassing but I think we should stick with the idea that mobile learning is about using digital devices as tools to learn interactively wherever one finds themselves and whenever one wants to learn. Sure, mobile learning is about convenience – kids can review notes while their parents drive them to after school activities or while on the bus. However, in defining mobile learning, the focus cannot be on convenience but upon effectiveness. These tools must be effective if they are worth incorporating them into student learning environments. Let’s look at it more as an assistive technology for everyone.

Where is the place of mobile learning in the classroom? While this is quite a large question that I will probably deal with in a later post, let me mention here that the dream of having one computer per child in classrooms is dead. What killed it? Economic realities. Please feel free to disagree with me but with the advent of Web 2.0 tools and the Wi-Fi enabled iPod Touch with a full-featured web browser, who needs a $1200-$1800 laptop when the same needs (namely, a device that allows for two-way, multimedia communication) can be met with a $300-$400 iPod? With computers, the initial costs are high, maintenance costs are high and the machines become obsolete quickly. Handheld devices, however, are much more portable, much less expensive, and most importantly, students already posses them! As a result, school costs can come down dramatically if we tap into valuable assistive technologies that students already bring to the classroom everyday.

While Mark Presnky may be falling more and more out of favour these days , as can be seen in this article challenge to Prensky’s natives/immigrants idea by George Siemens, I nevertheless want to point you to a keynote speech that he made at Handheld Learning 2007 as a segment into Mobile Learning and why it is important.

You can find it here.

The Mobile Learner – An Introduction

So the time has come for me to expand from my humble beginnings and to delve into new and exciting places.  I began blogging exactly a year ago as a way of experimenting with online publishing.  My first blog, which can be found at http://canuckhistory.wordpress.com, is about helping history teachers incorporate Web 2.0 tools in the History classroom.  While I am still very interested in this area and will continue to publish on that blog, I find myself publishing more and more material there that has less to do with history per say and more to to with teaching tools and teaching techniques.  As a result, I find that I have begun to explore different areas and different themes that are not necessarily suited for that blog.  Therefore, I am starting a new blog here.

So what will this be about?  I am very interested in Web 2.0 and new social organization but find that there are plenty of others blogging on this topic and what I may say here may be no different than what others have written on their blogs.  As a result, I decided to engage in a conversation about an emerging area that is not without its share of controversy – namely – mobile learning.  There are plenty of well-educated and well-meaning people who maintain a belief that handheld devices are detrimental to education when they are used in the classroom and I think it’s time that an alternative view be presented.  While I do have my brands of preference, and I’m sure these biases will reveal themselves, this blog is ultimately about learning and not about the gadgets themselves.

So why bother?  Well, I feel that we in education need to do a better job of reaching students on their level and to address student needs.  I also think that we in education need to do a better job of making learning attractive to today’s youth.  Today’s youth are connected, social, digital and mobile while our classrooms are disconnected, isolating, paper-based and static.  To make learning relevant, we need to make it dynamic and relevant.  I want to start a conversation about reconnecting students and education with the goals of student improvement.  Ultimately, it is student learning that matters most so if a cell phone or an iPod can be utilized to make that improvement happen, the so be it.

So let us begin this conversation…together…