-Colin Schumacher
Isn't that what education is all about?
As I was able to report on Helium, I am in favor of using cellphones in the classroom. I was excited to begin my search for other educators who agree and are having students learn using everyday cellphones. Starting at the beginning, this is how I came to interview two educators.
I began my search in Classroom2.0. There were numerous forums and blog posts about using cell phones in the classroom. I attempted to contact some people through forums both there and at eschoolnews, but received no response. A few days later, while inadvertently reading through Edutopia's Back to School Guide (PDF) I came across the Tappedin.org website. I quickly became a member and was welcomed into the chat room by "DavidW" who seemed to be part hound.
When I mentioned that I was looking for an educator using cellphones in the classroom he directed me to 5 or 6 other sites. Tappedin sent a transcript of our conversation to my email and I was able to follow up on those leads. One was a big hit! Slideshare.net had a presentation by a secondary school math teacher and IT Coach from central Pennsylvania named Jimbo Lamb. He replied instantly to an email I had sent him. He not only uses cell phones in his own math classrooms (plus has a Wikispaces home for his classes) but helps and encourages all teachers to embrace this easily available technology. His slideshow was excellent and helped direct me to his even better blog and eventually his email.
"The biggest challenge was getting other teachers on board with the new policy. Particularly, one English teacher didn't think there was any educational benefits of mobile devices in the classroom. She had a great speech to back up her position. While she was giving her speech, I downloaded the entire works of William Shakespeare for free from the iTunes app store and asked her if she would find that helpful. She mentioned they didn't have enough copies of some of the works that are covered, and that would be highly beneficial. She now has her own iPod touch (and almost got an iPhone) and sees the benefits of the devices, even if she doesn't necessarily use them in her classroom."
Mr.Lamb said this about the policy at his school:
"Phones should be silenced and out of sight unless given permission to use them for educational purposes. I am trying to get a policy in that allows for use in the hallways and at lunch, which is essentially the students' time."
He goes on to discuss how the parents have viewed the use of Cell phones in class. I love the last sentence!
"I use them without parental input, but have had positive feedback from parents, noting that they are appreciative that I am helping them get their money's worth out of the devices by helping them be more productive."
The very same day I heard from Mr. Lamb, I received a response from someone I had contacted earlier. A while back I was reading an article from eschoolnews about cell phones in classrooms. Someone who had written a reply to the article was very helpful in this endeavor. Colin Schumacher is a teacher, writer, consultant and doctoral student living in Sydney, Australia.
Here's a description from his website:
Colin is the creator and presenter of Making Meaning OnScreen - professional development workshops in screen production, screen literacy and pedagogy. He has trained over 1,800 K-12 teachers and screen directors in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, The Maldives, Singapore, Japan and Portugal. Colin is a writer, and director of theatre and screen production.
He has also written a book called "Making Meaning OnScreen" which is a student handbook for making effective videos. He has used cell phones for video production in dance, drama, visual arts, and English at the primary and secondary school level.
He mentioned that in his experience, the principal at the school is the key person for policy decisions. Here's a snippet of what he told me about cell phone policy and use:
"Students can't communicate with SMS or outgoing or incoming phone calls but strictly for video recording, viewing and downloading. It works really well and of course every student has a cellphone video capability and no longer stresses the video equipment needs and availability in schools.
I have to monitor this – but I find the teachers and students are so engaged, it isn't a problem."
He also discussed the challenges he has faced which appear to be of a technical nature."There are downloading problems from a cellphone to computer and acceptance by the software again depending on individual schools and their computer capability."
Both educators are interested in keeping up the dialogue and have asked for a response to discuss what we are doing. So far not much, but I am encouraged to take the first step. What great networking! In the end, I was thrilled to have found two successful people, worlds apart, validating the effective use of cell phones in education.
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