Disruptive technology? Cell phone!

The more I think about it, the cell phone must be the emerging technology with the greatest diruptive potential. Now that cell phones are well underway to becoming both ubiquitous and high powered (check out the G3 and other iPhones!) -- truly the tricorder of "Star Trek" fame-- they can do a lot in the classroom too, if properly programmed.

"Properly programmed"?!? That's a biggie, I admit! Like the handhelds in the MUVE "River City", cell phones should be able to access data about objects in the real world in real time. Already we can send messages -- I was texting spouse from the Acela Quiet Car last Thursday-- and some models can search the web. Receiving is pretty clearly a function.

Sending can vary. Photos. Music. Actual conversation.... Why not scan objects and send the data back?? (Well, Dr McCoy, it really did look like a gila monster...).

Cell phones have been a revolutionary device in start up businesses in newly industrializing economies (what some folks would call "third world"). Cell phones have accomplished what landlines and computers have not because the infrastructure on the ground is too hard to create, but satellite works. And because they are small and can be used in small quantities, cells allow entrepreneurs to offer services to others without much money on both sides.

Students seem to have cell phones everywhere all the time.

The trick, I think, is to somehow allow teenagers to call each other in class and make it a part of class, not an interruption...! Imagine, cell phones not as a unwanted distraction ("turn them off now...") but something that is controllable and useful, even by the average 14 year old...