One way that cell phones can be utilized without having them inside of the classroom, is by developing projects for the cell phone. One project could be to have students' create unique ringtones for their own phone or to share with others. Using a free web resource called Ring Blender, students can actually compose, mix, and share their ringtones to their cell phone directly from the Ring Blender website. Therefore, students do not need to bring their cell phones into the classroom to create a content-based ringtone project.While it is popular to ask students of all ages to create jingles or raps about concepts or unit themes (such as a rap about different chemical elements or a jingle concerning themes of democracy), these can easily be recorded in Ring Blender and sent to cell phones. The enhancement of recording these activities as ringtones is that they are instant reviews for students. Every time their cell phone rings, they get to review the themes or ideas. Additionally, students could set up their cell phones so that all of their friends have a different "ringtone" review jingle. Therefore, every time their cell phone rings, a different ringtone review is played!
UPDATE! Thanks to Adam Zurn, I have learned that you cannot upload you original work or record your original ringtone on Ring Blender. But you can do this on Audiko or Phonezoo.
