Updates on some Favorite Resources...

A few great things have happened with some of my most often used mobile resources...
1) Polleverywhere has gone voter friendly! :0
They now allow anyone who signs up to get 1000 votes for free! Big improvement over the original 100 votes. This is great for secondary classroom teachers who have over 100 students. Also Polleverywhere now allows you to embed your poll into a blog or website with an easy link. For PC users, they have a downloadable slide to insert into a PowerPoint presentation which will show the poll receiving real time updates in PowerPoint.

2) Eyespot has mobile subscription options!
While you have always been able to post videos from cell phones directly into Eyespot, now Eyespot allows you to "subscribe" through your mobile phone to other people's Eyespot accounts. This can be useful in education for mobile journalism. For example students in a Journalism class can become "i reporters" and take and post videos of current news stories happening around the school/community directly into Eyespot. Then anyone who subscribes to the Eyespot account, will immediately receive the new video post in their mobile phone. Just another example of how Journalism is going mobile.

Utterz...All-In-One mobile blogging! Free! Finally!

While there are some fantastic mobile blogging resources on the web, such as Gabcast, Gcast, Eyespot, Radar, evoca, Flickr, Jott, and Go@blogger.com, none of them allow you to post video, audio, text, and photos directly to a blog from their account. For example, Gabcast only posts audio, and Eyespot posts video, while Flickr only will post images. Now, of course you can set up accounts in all 3 of the aforementioned resources to post to the same blog, but the data will be housed in 3 separate places online. A little inconvenient for teachers and students. It is a also a reason why many teachers would be afraid to ask their students to mobile blog different types of media, because they do not want to deal with too many different web accounts. Now, I am come accross a resource called Utterz. It is the first resource I have found on the web that lets you mobile blog all 4 types of media to one place, from one account! Even better, it is international! So people from 25 different countries (and more), can use this free resource.

Let's look at the positives:
1) It is international, so people from around the globe can participate.
2) It is free to use.
3) You can use a landline (nice for students and/or teachers who do not have cell phones)
4) You can text, photo, video, or audio blogs from one account!
5) It has private options for posting!
6) You can post audio,text,images, and video on the same post from one phone.
7) You can "reply" to other "utterzs" and "listen" to them on your mobile phone.
8) You can receive alerts when someone comments or replys to your "utter"
9) The utters show up within a few seconds in your utter webspace.
10) You can "utter" back and forth with others via cell phone (no need to have computer or Internet access)

The downside:
1) Unlike some of the other resources I mentioned earlier, it is not a toll-free number (it is probably hard to do this since it is international), so if you use a landline, it will cost money (unless you have unlimited long-distance or use long-distance at an "unlimited talk" time)
2) there is some advertising (although it is off to the side and reasonable).
3) Utterz did show up on my blog posts within 10 minutes, but it showed up in my "drafts" box in blogger. This is not necessarily a negative because teachers who want to moderate posts, can then hit the published button after they have viewed/listened to the post. But if you want it to immediately post to a blog---it seems to have some trouble doing this, it might be because I have comment moderation on? I'm not sure.

Other than not having a toll-free number (maybe that will change?!), Utterz is a great resource for mobile blogging because it is all-in-one media blogging. This would be a great resource for students who are on field trips or a break from school. On their field trip, they could "blog" photos, videos, text, or audio to their Utterz account (or an external blog). Over Spring break students could do the same (maybe for extra credit...), for example if they are studying ecosystems in science class, they could post images of creatures and/or plants they find at the beach. Utterz could also be used as an up-to-date local newspaper. Students could post local event information, video, reports, and images as they are happening in their community.

iReporters...21st Century Journalism!

Election season is upon us and many promanent news organizations are asking everyday citizens to become journalist with their cell phones. CNN is asking for iReporters from every state as voting occurs in the primaries. The ways it works is simple, just shoot a video or take a picture of some citizens in action at the polls, then send it along with a short message to ireport@cnn.com. Seniors in high school could create their own iReports as they vote for the first time, while younger students could create iReports of "exit" or "entrance" polls...or simply report on their observations at a voting location (such as a low voter turnout or a lot of excitement for a certain candidate). While I have previously written posts on the new mobile journalism phenomenon, news organizations such as CNN or ABC asking citizens to become journalist and publish their work globally is an exciting "entrance" into the authentic world of news journalism for many students. I have stated before (and am sure that I will again) there are many great resources on the web which allow students to create their own iReport or mobile journalist websites where they can post directly from their cell phones as news occurs.

One example would be creating a blog with blogger, and then using go@blogger.com to post pictures directly to the blog. They can use Eyespot to post videos directly to their blog (they can sign up for an account and in their settings designate that each video sent from their cell phones should instantly show up on their blog). Students can use Gabcast to post audio podcasts directly to their blog (again once they sign up for an account, they can create a new channel that will post podcasts instantly from their cell phone to their blogger blog). They never actually need to go on the Internet to create a multi-media iReport blog. Students can create iReport blogs around specific content themes such as "insects" for science, "2008 election" for social studies, or "local authors" for English.

Open call for international mobile film festival!

The 4th edition of the Pocket Films Festival will take place at the Pompidou Center, Paris, on June, 13-14-15th 2008. Currently they have an "open call" for international films created with mobile phones. This is an opportunity for students to develop films for class using their cell phones and receive some internalization recognition for their work. There are two competitions, one for films shot entirely with cell phones, the other for films created for the cell phone or iPod. Students in French foreign language classes can really take advantage of using their French language and cultural skills to create their films. Students could video tape with their cell phones and then send them to Eyespot to do their video editing. For students who do not have access to their own cell phone, films could also be created on a digital video camera, but they must be converted to be viewed on and iPod or Cell phone (3G format). A great free online converter is Zamzar (select the 3G or iPod option). Beyond a film competition they also have a mobile "project" competition for social activist or non-profits (such as schools...) to develop mobile projects around a particular social issue. What a fantastic opportunity for mobile citizen journalism or student activism (that I spoke of in a recent post). The project competition is really considering the cell phone to be a device of knowledge construction! Fantastic!

Mobile Citizen Activism...How about student activism?

There has been some discussion in the local papers about mobile citizen journalism, where everyday people capture breaking news stories with their cell phones. While I think that students can definitely participate in their own citizen journalism around their community, I also think mobile phones provide a wonderful opportunity for student activism. One example of an activist movement is Friends of the Earth. Friends of the Earth ask citizens to video tape (they can use their mobile camcorders) a message about saving the environment in their local community. Students could not only participate in projects like this but they could also help to create mobile activist projects. They could use some of the free web2.0 mobile resources such as Eyespot (which can immediately post to any blog) and ask people to post mobile videos on different activist or social justice topics such as reasons why we should donate to a local homeless shelter or supporting universal health care reform. Another resource that I think might be helpful for activism is text messaging. Joe Wood, he has brought my attention to a new idea of using Twitter (a social networking text messaging tool) as a mobile learning tool. One idea that I thought of was to use Twitter as a tool for social activism. Some of the 2008 presidential candidates have a Twitter account, so citizens can follow their campaigns. One example is Barack Obama.
Students could create their own activist campaign on Twitter. For example, they could send out text alerts and messages about environmental issues, where others who are interested in the same topic could become part of their activist community. They could focus efforts on educating the public about their topic of interest. Another activism project is the People's 311, where New Yorkers can post mobile pictures of dangerous situations in New York City on a local map (such as a stop sign that has fallen down).

Students or teachers could do something similar in their own local community with mobile Flickr and posting to a private Flickr Map (under the You Tab--My Map at the top of any Flicker account). Teachers could create a community account in Flickr and give out to students the mobile image posting address.

Scavenger Hunt with Cell Phones!

So I have been thinking about Classroom Performance Systems (often called the "blue clickers" by my student teachers), and wondering if a cell phone can do a similar function. Since the CPS systems often cost a good deal of money, many school districts cannot take advantage of them. In addition, I think that using cell phones would help "connect" students with their everyday lives outside of school and the tool they are using for class activities. As a result I have come up with an idea for "Cell Phone" scavenger hunt. This is how it works...

Image Scavenger Hunt
1) Teacher sets up a Fickr account and gets a mobile Flickr email address (which they give to the students)
2) Students are given a list of items they must find or learn for homework (this would also be a nice Spring or Winter break activity). For example the list may have to do with insects, and they are given a list of insects they need to locate and identify.
3) For homework (in the real world) when they locate an item on the list, they capture it with an image and send it to the class Flickr account (with a short text message to identify the item).

Audio Scavenger Hunt
1) Teacher sets up a Gabcast account (tutorial) and gets a Channel number/password (which they give to the students)
2) Students are given a list of items they must learn for homework (this would also be a nice Spring or Winter break activity). For example the list may have to do with American Government, and they are given a list of government concepts they need to learn.
3) For homework (in the real world) when they find someone who knows the concept, they capture it by recording in Gabcast on their cell phone and it will automatically post to the class Gabcast account (This can be put directly on a blog or just saved in the Gabcast account).
4) Back in class, students could upload the audio concepts to their cell phones by using csharpcomputing to use as a digital review or they could download them into iMovie and add images to represent the concepts.

Video Scavenger Hunt
This could also be done with video using Eyespot. Students in a math class could video tape experiences where they had to use their math skills in the real world (at the store, at the bank...etc) and send them to the private eyespot account set up by their teacher.

Cell Phone Video Production

One of the latest cell phone options is video recording. while the videos recorded on cell phones today are fairly short (usually 30 seconds to a minute) and the quality is not nearly as decent as a good digital camcorder, I believe this is changing. In the next year or so, we will have much better quality camcorders in cell phones. Therefore we should consider options on using cell phone as camcorders for learning. There are a few places, such as Ithaca college that are already on-board with this concept. The CellFlix Festival is an opportunity for any student to share video taken from a cell phone (edited on any video editor). A great resource to assist in developing these mini 30-second cell phone movies is Eyespot. Eyespot is an online free video editor (think web2.0) where you can immediately and directly post video from your cell phone into the online video editor. When you are done editing, you can upload it to the CellFlix Festival page. Therefore your students can shoot documentaries (think interviews), 30-second commercials, or even news reports with their cell phone, send it directly to an online video editing tool (no need for iMovie or MovieMaker anymore)...then upload it to a legitimate movie festival for publication!