Mobile phones in the languages classroom

Modern mobile phones are sophisticated devices which allow much more than simple communication between two people. They can also be used to:

• record audio
• take photos
• shoot video
• text message
• store contact numbers and important dates
• watch tv clips
• send emails
• surf the internet
• read text documents
• play sound files

Most schools however ban or greatly discourage the use of mobiles by pupils for the following reasons:

• distracting others in class
• cheating
• cyberbullying
• photographing, filming or recording other pupils or teachers without their permission
• 'happy slapping' (recording a violent assault of another pupil and then showing it to others)
• the temptation of them being stolen

These understandable concerns aside, some bloggers are suggesting that insteading of banning, we should be encouraging pupils to take advantage of the powerful functions of mobile technology to assist learning.

On her latest blog Lynne Horn from Tobermory High School has been asking her pupils to record themselves practising dialogues and chanting verbs on their mobiles which they can then email to themselves or copy to CD. Her Mobile Verbs post, has received some very positive comments and been blogged about in other posts such as For once, we ask the kids how long they can spend on the phone and Language practice using mobile phones.

In his post Turn on, tune in... send email!, David Muir, lecturer in Educational Computing at the University of Strathclyde describes another way of using mobile phones to moblog in an educational context. During his talk, he asked his students to take photos with their mobile phones and send them to a 'special' email address which automatically uploaded them to his Flickr account. See David's photostream here to get more of the picture.

With this evidence, should we ring the changes and rethink our stance on using mobile phones in the classroom. It's your call.

Comments

[Langwitches]

Joe,
Great post !
I agree that we need to start using the technology gadgets that students already have and are comfortable with. It is a win - win situation, since students will be excited about using them in the classroom and it does not cost anything extra for the schools. The main issue will be to convince administration not to ban the technology for all the reasons that you mentioned in your post. The solution is not to ban, but to educate on the proper uses. Every technology can be used for good or bad purposes. It is the individual who needs to decide for what purpose to use them AND the job of parents and teachers to guide the children on learning to make the right decision.

[Adam Sutcliffe]

Hi Joe

This is a fantastic idea. I think I am going to use it to get students to record presentations. I can then bluetooth the recordings to the laptop and use garageband/itunes to post onto a blog.

However I believe that it must be stressed that the use of phone in the classroom is for an educational purpose and that it should not be taken as read that other teachers would be so accepting in their classrooms.

Thanks
Adam

[Joe Dale]

Hi Langwitches (Silvia) and Adam,

Thanks for your kind comments. I must stress that the inspiration for this post came from Lynne and David. I'm just reporting their ideas really.

I like the idea of using bluetooth to send the sound files to your computer. I'm getting a new laptop in the next couple of weeks from my school and I'll have to check if it has bluetooth.

I was also thinking that if you are linked with a school abroad, you could ask them to record some audio for you using Odeo. If you go to the website http://www.odeo.com, it will tell you what to do. Once you've registered, you can put a button on your blog which will allow people to leave messages for free just by speaking into a microphone attached to a computer. The recording is then sent to your email address where you can download it , edit it with Audacity or Garageband and post it on your blog.

If you don't like the sound of that (excuse the pun), you can record a voice mail with a normal telephone using the K7.net service on a special number which is then also sent to your email. My number is 0012063506411. Look at http://www.k7.net for more details. You have to pay for the call, but it only costs about 1.25 pence (from the UK) per minute.

Could be a great way to get authentic language straight into the classroom for free or next to nothing. Try it out.

Best wishes

Joe

[Joe Dale]

There is also a new service called Pinger at www.pinger.com which lets you leave voice messages for free and is designed to be used with mobile phones. Have a look. I've not tried it myself and I'd be interested to hear how it works.

Joe

[Adam Sutcliffe]

All this stuff is just seems to be made for language learning. Trouble I'm finding is getting the time to investigate it all. By the time you have checked out some new technology it seems to be outdated.
Thanks for keeping us informed, Joe.
Adam