In the last 25 years, there has been a tremendous evolution in technology. The cell phone 25 years ago was the same size as the receiver on the landline phone. Now cell phones are so small that they do literally fit in the palm of your hand. The cell phone in the past were used just to make and receive calls, but now, the cell phones act as mini-computers that connect to the internet. Cell phones today are not a luxury as they were 25 years ago, but a necessity for information retrieval and for connecting to other people through emails, texting, and the whole world of social networking.
The article, The Classroom in the Palm of Your Hand, in elearn Magazine (May 2012) highlights the prevalent use of the phone in our everyday life. The author, Aaron Iffland, provides some startling statistics:
- 28% of Americans ages 18 to 34 check Facebook before getting out of bed
- 49% of Americans from 18 to 24 own smartphones
- 25% of smartphone users mostly use their phones, rather than their computers, to go online and find information and to keep connected to their friends
Given these statistics, it makes sense to use mobile devices for instruction. The writer who is a math instructor at an American university admits that he does not use this attraction to smartphones as teaching tool. The author provides some strategies for the effective use of mobile phones for instruction:
- Freedom to chose the technology
Provide students with the freedom to choose the format of their assignments. The author gave his students the option of submitting homework and projects in any manner that they wanted as long as the format was available through a free and common technology. His students emailed, texted and tweeted questions and comments. He found that the completion rate of assignments increased.
- Flexibility and Interactivity
Mobile users can connect with other students in other schools in the city, in the province, and in the world. If they are seeking a solution to a problem, in math or in any other topic, they can access the experts all over the world and do not have to rely on the one expert, the teacher, in the room. As teachers, we need to help our students become efficient and effective problem-solvers. They do not need to memorize information as much as knowing where to get it and how to use it. The internet gives students access to current information. Collaboration is part of problem-solving, and the internet provides our students with this collaboration through various technologies such as the smartphones.
This author challenges teachers to prepare the students for the real world by using technologies for instruction that students use in their own personal and later, professional lives.
information taken from: elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2208916
