Ways to work around the no cell phone rule in the classroom

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Permalink Reply by Mary Ewald on April 15, 2012 at 1:57am

I created an SAT vocabulary project on Voicethread for my students. One of them, downloaded the feed or thread into their cell phone. Great idea! He taught me. Prior to a quiz, kids are allowed to pull out their cell phones and study from their cell phone or laptop. They seem to like this a lot.

Mary Ewald

Permalink Reply by Paula Rogers on April 16, 2012 at 8:50pm

How about creating a page of QR codes for assignment links?
Paula Rogers

Permalink Reply by Christine Novak on April 17, 2012 at 4:19pm

I appreciate the question!  My school also has a no cell phone policy, and I'm always wondering about what to do with this.  How would you handle this for students who don't have cell phones, or only have basic policies?  I had an extra credit assignment online once, and I heard a ton of complains from students that don't have an internet connection at home.

Permalink Reply by Willyn Webb on April 19, 2012 at 9:17am

In our book, "Teaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning" we offer many ideas for using phones for homework.  Homework, is actually my favorite way to use them.  I use Celly for a group text to all of my students to activate their thinking prior to class, answer homework questions to a Wiffiti board/poll everywhere poll, or reply to the group text.  Check out the teachinggenerationtext blog for many ideas and email me with specific questions willyn@willynwebb.com

Permalink Reply by Hugh Potter on April 22, 2012 at 11:13am

We also do not allow cell phones in the classroom, however, as part of the homework for the class cell phones could be a huge component of the learning environment. For example, you could use QR codes to lead to a web quest for a particular project, you could use a twitter project to have the students follow certain groups or people to better understand how twitter can generate understandings and questions, another great tool with cell phones could be a designed "walk" through the community with required photos being taken along the way then sent to the teacher to show that the students actually went on the learning walk.

Either way, if you are a creative educator, cell phone use can and will lead to greater ownership of learning because it will put the kids at the center of the learning. They will not be doing a worksheet, they will not be do a set of problems, they will be engaged in a task that will seem fun and new, yet still providing the learning desired in the creation of the lesson and the homework to support the in-class work.