Cell Phones as Teaching Tools

If, like some teachers, you want to try to exploit the cell phone as a teaching tool, consider its ever evolving range of functions.

Calculators. Although most schools have them in math class, other classes that don't have them on hand for students can benefit from number crunching. For example, social studies students studying elections can quickly determine percentages of electoral votes or other scenarios. Science classrooms can use them to perform calculations related to fieldwork.?

Digital cameras. Not all schools or classrooms are outfitted with digital cameras, although many can benefit from them. For example, students can use them to document a variety of things for multimedia presentations or reports. Fieldtrips can be documented and incorporated into digital travelogues.?

Internet access. Many phones have wireless Internet access, thus opening up a world of possibilities for class use. Science students might conduct fieldwork and submit their observations or data to either an internal or external data gathering site. Students can subscribe to podcasts that you produce or offered by a multitude of other sources.?

Dictionaries. Students in literature and language arts classes can benefit from being able to quickly query the definition of a word. Additionally, students who are English learners especially can benefit from translation dictionaries which are becoming available on cell phones.

What Can You Learn from a Cell Phone? Almost Anything!

by Marc Prensky

One and a half billion people, all over the world, are walking around with powerful computers in their pockets and purses. The fact is they often do not realize it, because they call them something else. But today's high-end cell phones have the computing power of a mid-1990s personal computer (PC)—while consuming only one one-hundredth of the energy. Even the simplest, voice-only phones have more complex and powerful chips than the 1969 on-board computer that landed a spaceship on the moon.

In the United States, it is almost universally acknowledged that computers are essential for 21st-century students. To most educators "computer" means a PC, a laptop, or, in some instances, a personal digital assistant (PDA); cell phones, on the other hand, are more often regarded as bothersome distractions to the learning process. However, it is time to begin thinking of our cell phones as computers—even more powerful in some ways than their bigger cousins. Both have microchips and perform logical functions. The main difference is that the phones began with, and still have, small size, radio transmission, and communication as their core features, expanding out toward calculation and other functions. This has happened at precisely the same time as the calculation machines we call computers have expanded into communication and other areas. Clearly the two are headed toward meeting in the middle; when all the miniaturization problems have been solved, the result will be tiny, fully featured devices that we carry around (or perhaps have implanted in our bodies).

For now, most educators still see the computer and the cell phone as very different devices, with the tiny cell phone being a much more personal (and ubiquitous) accoutrement, especially among young people. In the United States, the penetration of student mobile phones is 40% in many junior high schools and 75% in many high schools (NOP World

2005); according to a Student Monitor survey (as cited in Kinzie 2005), penetration is 90% in U.S. colleges. With dropping prices and increasing utility, it is almost a foregone conclusion that not too far into the future, all students will have a cell phone, quite possibly built right into their clothing. Ski parkas with built-in cell phones are already on the market. Yet Americans do not fully appreciate the potential of these devices; from a cell phone perspective, we remain

PC-centric laggards.

Meanwhile, the cell phone—generally called a mobile phone outside of the United States—has proved so useful elsewhere that there are 1.5 billion around the world, with half a billion new ones sold every year (Stone 2004). The country where the computer was invented, along with its northern neighbor, Canada, are the only places where PCs still outnumber cell phones. In the rest of the world the mobile reigns, with countries often having 5 to 10 times more mobile phones than PCs.

In some countries—including the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, and the Czech Republic—cell phone penetration is greater than 100%, which means that individuals own and use two or more of these devices (Borghese 2005; Agence France-Presse 2004). Cell phone penetration in Asia continues to climb: Hong Kong and Taiwan have already surpassed

100% according to one prominent survey (IT Facts 2004; Simon 2004), and several years ago, J@pan Inc magazine reported that more than 90% of Tokyo high schoolers carried mobile phones (2001). Usage is increasing wildly across the globe, notably where relatively inexpensive cell systems bring service to areas without land lines. In Botswana, roughly one of every four citizens owned a mobile phone by 2002 (Central Intelligence Agency 2005, "People"; "Communications"). Moreover, students in China, the Philippines, and Germany are using their mobile phones to learn

English; to study math, health, and spelling; and to access live and archived university lectures, respectively (BBC Press Office 2005; Villafania 2004; Chapman 2003).

Cell phones are not just communications devices sparking new modalities of interaction between people; they are also particularly useful computers that fit in your pocket, are always with you, and are nearly always on. Like all communication and computing devices, cell phones can be used to learn. So rather than fight the trend of kids coming to school carrying their own powerful learning devices—which they have already paid for—why not use the opportunity to their educational advantage?

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Designing Cell Phones as Learning Tools

Can cell phones really provide their owners with the knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that will help them succeed in their schools, their jobs, and their lives? I maintain that the only correct answer to the question of what students can learn with a cell phone is "anything, if we educators design it right." There are many different kinds of learning and many processes that people use to learn, but among the most frequent, time-tested, and effective of these are listening, observing, imitating, questioning, reflecting, trying, estimating, predicting, speculating, and practicing. All of these learning processes can be supported through cell phones. In addition, cell phones complement the short-burst, casual, multitasking style of today's "Digital Native" learners. Using cell phones as learning devices, whether in or out of school, requires a good deal of rethinking and flexibility on the part of educators. Yet given the opportunity, students will quickly embrace, use, and make the tool their own in various unexpected ways—just as they have been doing with all useful digital technology.

Feature Segmentation

So what and how can our students—including adult trainees—learn from their cell phones?

A useful way to answer this question is to consider the capabilities that phones in use today possess, and to see what each capability brings us. With half a billion cell phones sold each year, the devices are hotbeds of feature innovation—the major features being voice, short messaging service (SMS), graphics, user-controlled operating systems, downloadables, browsers, camera functions (still and video), and geopositioning—with new features such as fingerprint readers, sensors, and voice recognition being added every day. In addition, optional hardware and software accessories are available as both input mechanisms (e.g., thumb keyboards and styli) and optional output systems (e.g., plug-in screens and headphones).

Voice Only

The most basic phones—those with voice capabilities only—are still the most prevalent in the world, although they are fast being replaced and upgraded. They are basically radios that pick up and send signals on certain predetermined.