Mobile Learning Lab

After learning more about mobile learning, I was excited to explore mobile learning opportunities to use in my classroom.  I explored many of the articles including the Innovator Educator Blog, 10 Ideas for Using Cell Phones in the Classroom, Ipods/Ipads in the Classroom, & Podcasting: Using Podcasts in the Classroom. Podcasting is something I have used in my classroom, but would like to use more of.  I have used it as a way for students to share their writing, and practice reading with fluency. 


What ways are you thinking about integrating mobile technology into YOUR classroom?
 I created a poll using polleverywhere.com.  Unfortunately, my school year has already ended, but I decided to create a poll to use at the beginning of next year to use as a "getting to know you" activity.  I thought this poll would be a fun way to incorporate technology and help students get know each other in our classroom.  I could see using polls for a quick assessment of student learning after an activity, quizzes, or even to collect data and analyze during our data unit in math.  I love the idea of using wordle to create an image of the results.  My class could easily see which response was the most frequent by how large the words were.  This is a wonderful visual for my second graders.

Another way I have used mobile learning in my classroom was when my students performed different reader's theater performances last week. I had one student who really did not want to be involved in the acting part of the performance, so I had him use the classroom ipad to take a video of each performance.  I would like to use video more often in my classroom.  

What challenges (or inspirations) do you foresee?
One challenge I see is the ability to use cell phones in an elementary classroom. My students are 7 and 8 years old, so most do not own a cell phone at this age.  I enjoyed the video which showed three 5th grade students and their enthusiasm for learning with technology, specifically cell phones.  This school was able to provide all students with a cell phone through a grant, which is something that would need to happen in my building in order to make cell phones accessible to all students.