K-12 Online Conference

I listened to the "Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools" presentation. While this assignment is suppossed to be a summary and what I learned, the summary and what I learned will be the same, because literally everything said in this presentation was all new to me. I don't even know how to text on my cell phone. This presentation gave specific examples of, as the title states, how to use cell phones as tools for learning and teaching.
The presenters first talked about four ways to use cell phones as tools and used free Web 2.0 resources to assist in the use of cell phones:
1. Podcasting
You can use a phone to record a podcast and download, as an MP3 file, to a website such as gadcast.com, which also allows you to automatically post the podcast to a blog.
2.Phone Conferencing
There are many free sites that allow for phone conferencing such as freeconferencepro.com, which allows you to talk to as many as two hundred people.
3.Private Voicemail
This is useful especially if you do not want to give out your personal phone number. Websites like privatephone.com allows you to set up free voicemail and gives you a local number. You can check your messages online or by phone.
4. Mobil Notetaking
There are many websites, such as jot.com tha allow you to send audio notes from your cell phone to an e-mail account.
They also gave some examples of podcasts from teachers and students.
They said that students can use phones for other things like interviews, soundclips, radio broadcasts, creating books on tape, and virtual conferencing or debates.
Cell phones can also be used as digital cameras and camcorders. Many websites such as blogger, flicker, and bubbleshare are set up for photoblogging. On bubbleshare you can even create a photo slideshow. There are also websites like ispot that allow for video posting and editing. Some ideas on how photos and video recordings would be useful is for data collection (science class), interviewing purposes, digital story books, enhanced podcasting, and public service announcements.
Teachers can also create fun project for cell phones. You can have the class make creative ring tones through phonezoo.com. They can create educational wallpaper or screensavers through picstophone.com. They can send free text messages through many online sites. They can also conduct surveys and polls with their phones through mobil.com. These options would be useful for texting unit reviews, creating fun ring tones and jingles for studying, mobil artwork, students can text current events back and forth to eachother, and also for texting school events and news.
Cell phones can also be a research tool. Most new phones come with the ability to access the internet. A phone can only access mobile ready pages, which are designated by a .mobi. One website called ready.mobi allows you to see if a website is available for a cell phone. Most search sites are mobile ready. Students can also text their librarian. A website called mobilquery.com offers free software for quick reference. Also homeworknow.com gives parents and students homework alerts.
Finally, new features are continually being updated and many are coming in the future. More software is being created for cell phones like software to turn your phone into a graphing calculator, or better access to navigation (GPS) software. They are working on cell phones having the ability to act as a all-in-one printer (scan, copy, fax). And there are some phones that can be used as a jump drive.
It is amazing how cell phone technology has increased and how useful a cell phone is now. I think some people often forget that it was originally made as a way to audiblly talk to other people, but now that is only a small feature. This presentation was very informative and gave many useful ideas for using cell phones for learning and teaching tools. The only thing I question is how practical is it to expect everyone in the class to have a phone, whether they can afford one, or even the fact that not all parents want their kids to have a phone. I think many of these ideas can apply to certain schools, but I believe that the use of phones in a class setting will increase in the future.