iPhone for school

February 12, 2008

We always make the kids put away phones, ipods, etc… but should we? Today in school the kids were studying for the rhetorical schemes quiz, and most had printed pages from Google docs where we had the definitions saved, and some had nothing, but this one kid was sitting in the back of the room scrolling through his iPhone. Most teachers may’ve just went back and grabbed the thing or told him to put it away, but I jokingly went back and took it. He said “but, I’m studying”, and even though I took it mostly because I wanted to play with it (come on, Sprint! get the iPhone!), I did look down. He had Google Docs opened through Safari (I can excuse his using Safari), and he was studying his words, definitions and examples. I smiled and handed back the phone. I thanked him for giving my blog fodder, he laughed, and I moved on.  Here is just one way that kids can use this technology for school. Maybe he planned to review online or maybe he just forgot the papers, but he used it the right way!

As for the whole Google Doc thing, I tried something new here. I added my 180 students as collaborators to the document, and I let them find the examples. I gave them the definitions (which they could edit) and let them find the other information. My colleague and I stayed away from the document (for the most part), but we were more than willing to answer questions before the quiz. No one asked questions in this class, but after the test they complained that some of the examples were under the wrong terms. I asked them why it was my problem. Maybe you’d say “because you’re the teacher!” but I did teach them something. I taught them that they need to be able to evaluate information and to be culpable for their own learning. There’ll be teachers out there who teach definitions and ask them to regurgitate, and then there are educators who lead the way and wait for them to follow. We hold their hands when they need it, and we stand behind them and push when they need it.

Posted in google docs, iphone, rhetoric, student2.0, technology, web2.0