In
today’s digital world you are never out of reach of someone who is looking to
get a hold of you. Now your opinion on
if this is a good change in our society or not, the fact is that to our
students being connected 24 hours a day is now a way of life. With the proliferation of cell phones in
today’s society the question of whether or not to use these revolutionary
pieces of technology in the classroom is one that all districts and teachers
need to address. While a problem for all
teachers, this issue is more tailored towards the secondary teachers and the
unique characteristics of teaching students who are driving and often times
have jobs outside of school. For most of
these students having a cell phone is as important as their friends and
cars. With that in mind, I interviewed a
fellow teacher who uses cell phones fairly regularly inside her classroom. During this conversation we discussed some of
the problems and benefits she has faced allowing her students to use cell
phones.
Christine,
who asked that I not use her last name, is a high school history teacher in the Lake
Washington School District. For over a
year now she has been using cell phones in her classroom as a formative
assessment tool. This is done using a
free website called Kahoot. This website allows anyone to create a series
of multiple choice questions. On the
first page of the quiz is a code that you text into a specific number that then
registers you for the quiz. Using your
cell phone you then can answer the question you see on screen which scores you
based on accuracy and time. The top five
people are displayed for the class to see, adding to the tension and competition
of the assessment. Christine reported
that the one downside is the competitive nature of the activity as the students
get really excited to see their names on the leaderboard, basically she said,
“It is not a quiet activity.”
The
district we both teach in has a policy regarding cell phones that if they are
not be explicitly used for educational purposes they must be put away and out
of reach of the student. Luckily our
policy does allow for the educational use of cell phones in the class so that
was something did not have to be addressed prior to the use of this
activity. Christine mentioned that the
feedback she had received from the use of this program in her class has been
entirely positive. She also pointed out
that this site can be used by those students who do not have cell phones by
having them log onto the website and completing the quizzes with the rest of
the class through that medium. Her
principal even requested to observe a lesson in which she used this because she
had heard such great things from the students.
It is actually from her administrator, who shared it with mine, that I
became aware of her use of this technology.
As for
challenges that she has faced, Christine reported that it was really just being
able to create quality questions. At
first it was hard to come up with questions that accurately judged the
students’ knowledge of the topic and not specific random facts about it. The cell phones allowed for greater
participation, but not necessarily better results on the tests because the
questions she was asking were not appropriate to the goal that she was trying
to achieve. After practice with her
questioning however, she has seen an increase in test scores and higher work completion
in other areas of her class.
The use
of cellphones in the classroom is something that districts will need to start
addressing. As more apps and websites
become available that use this technology, the talk might shift from why are
you using cellphones to why aren’t you using them. I know I use a service called remind to text
information out to parents and students.
The idea of not using a resource available that can positively impact
students is something that I can understand.
As Christine pointed out, “Technology is a tool, it is how you use it
that determines its worth.”
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