Radio Show #5: Taking Advantage of Text Messaging on Student Cell Phones

Thank you to all who listened to the broadcast. The next broadcast will be Wed Dec. 3rd at 3:00. The topic (as per PeggyG's great suggestion) will be: What can we do with one cell phone per classroom?



Here is the transcript of the Chat:
Liz Kolb:Welcome! We will begin shortly.
Liz Kolb:Our topic today is taking advantage of text messaging on student cell phones for classroom learning.
Peggy_G:Hi Liz. Always excited to hear your show! So glad it's 30 mins now. :-)
Peggy_G:Kim-great to see you!
kcaise:hi Peggy!
Peggy_G:unlimited text messaging is a wonderful thing! essential for teens!
Liz Kolb:hi everyone
Liz Kolb:http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/34313179.html
Peggy_G:I learned that the hard way! You definitely need a partner to help monitor chat. :-)
kcaise:definitely - same here
Peggy_G:oops-clicked on the link and lost my chat window. :-(
Liz Kolb:http://www.ask500people.com/questions/should-high-schools-offer-courses-via-cell-phone
Peggy_G:what incredible examples of texting to meet real-life needs!
Peggy_G:such a good point about using textmessaging with hearing impaired students! Inclusion at it's best!
kcaise:just the ask500
Peggy_G:yes some links-not the last couple
Liz Kolb:Textmarks.com
Peggy_G:great! we can find them on your blog later :-)
Liz Kolb:ohdontforget.com
Liz Kolb:sendible.com
Liz Kolb:lastspotted.com
Liz Kolb:http://flagr.com
Liz Kolb:http://gpsed.com/
Liz Kolb:Textmarks.com
Peggy_G:mobile text messaging campaigns for businesses-great idea!
Peggy_G:students can become the experts-perfect angle for this site
Liz Kolb:http://www.zoozmobile.com/control/index.html
Liz Kolb:Phonezoo.com
Peggy_G:these suggestions are so valuable for districts facing the financial crunch of purchasing things like response systems (everyone is facing financial crunches)
kcaise:thanks everyone
kcaise:Thanks Liz
Peggy_G:Wonderful show (again!) Where should we share ideas for future shows?
Liz Kolb:Thanks everyone for joining...any suggestions for future topics?
Liz Kolb:@Peggy Here or on my blog
Peggy_G:ok-I'd love to hear more ideas about how to use cell phones in centers when you're just getting started with 1 cell phone-teacher's phone
Liz Kolb:Good suggestions...that will be my topic after Thanksgiving. I get that question a lot.
Peggy_G:anything that takes what teachers are already doing and shows how they could enhance it with cell phones outside of school :-)

Radio Show #3: Cell Phone Cameras for Curriculum-Based Learning

Transcript from Chat:
Liz Kolb:Welcome to Cell Phones in Learning...Today's topic: Taking advantage of camera phones to connect with content learning
Liz Kolb:http://mguhlin.blogspot.com/2008/10/mobile-citizenship-commenthoist.html
Peggy_G:Great to hear you Liz. Squeezing this in before the ISTE webinar.
Liz Kolb:http://Flagr.com
Liz Kolb:http://photobucket.com
Peggy_G:Photobucket is one of the widgets that works on Wetpaint wikis
Liz Kolb:http://lastspotted.com
Peggy_G:probably ads :-(
Peggy_G:what great suggestions for LastSpotted-can't wait to share them! :-)
Meccanized:wouldn;t it be easy to cheat with picture-hpone assignments? what with the bluetooth and picture messaging
Liz Kolb:iReport@cnn.com
Liz Kolb:politics@cbseyemobile.com
Liz Kolb:http://www.allvoices.com/
Peggy_G:excellent response about ways to redefine the assignments to make them more open-ended to encourage conversation
Liz Kolb:http://Jumblr.tv
Peggy_G:Oh I love the addition of Geek of Week for Mobile :-)
Peggy_G:what a fun, motivating vocabulary activity with jumblr.tv!
Liz Kolb:http://Dial2do.com
Peggy_G:how great to have an alternative to JOTT that is free :-)
Meccanized:wait....u can listen to ur text? wth?
Peggy_G:that is incredibly exciting! I can't wait to explore it! so many features!!
Peggy_G:Definitely do a blog post about that!!
Peggy_G:Love your 30 minute show Liz! Just perfect and allows plenty of time to give examples. Thanks!
Liz Kolb:Thanks for joining me! DId I miss any resources?
Peggy_G:Nothing you can't continue with next week.
Peggy_G:Off to the ISTE webinar on blogging :-) Thanks!
Liz Kolb:@meccanized...YES you listen to text with your cell phone
Liz Kolb:Thanks Peggy!
Peggy_G:see you next week!


Next Broadcast will be in 2 weeks on Wed. November 5th between 2-3:30 (TBA). Topic will be: Creating Professional Development for Teachers Interested in Integrating Cell Phones in their Curriculum.

Mobile Timelines: Field Trip, Mission Trip, or Local Scavenger Hunt

Using a free web resource called Whrrl students could document a location-based learning experience outside of school. Whrrl is a SMS social networking map tool, yet it can be an effective tool for students to document their local and distant travel experiences. Students can send SMS text messages to a private Whrrl map from each location they visit. Whrrl will then number each location, which creates "footprints" on the map of where students visited (numbering their visits, with a number/time/date), along with their text message experiences of the visit. For example, students can do a local social studies scavenger hunt, where they can use their cell phones to create a map-based travel journal of a learning experience. The teacher can give students local community "items" to find such as a home that was used on the underground railroad or where to go for jury duty. The students would visit these locations, get answers to questions (provided by their teacher), and then SMS text their answers along with the proper location to the Whrrl map. Whrrl is similar to Flagr (expect Flagr allows pictures, and Whrrl does a better job documenting contributions). Whrrl maps also include local attractions. While in the United States this could be used for planning a school trip (such as going to Washington DC), In cultural studies it could be used for foreign language students to role-play a travel agency helping Americans plan trips to a foreign country (Whrrl maps all over the world!).


The other nice feature of Whrrl is that students do not need to be in the location to SMS text about the location. So they can do some timeline projects based on people who lived in different cities or events that took place in other countries. For example, students reading a biography in English or Social Studies class, could create a timeline map of the experiences of the person or events in the biography. Such as a biography of Ernest Hemingway and documenting the places that Hemingway lived and wrote his novels (and if/how those living experiences may have influened the particular novels he was writing at the time). Or students studying the spread of influenza in Europe and North America the early 1900's, could trace the spread by short SMS stories or quotes that they uncover doing their homework reading about the spread.

Location Blogging for Free without Software!

Finally! After much research I have found a great and free web2.0 application that couples with cell phones for location blogging. It is called Flagr. Flagr allows anyone to create an account. And Flagr works with just about any basic cell phone (no smartphones needed), and no need to download software! In Flagr you can participate in the large global community Flagr map (similar to the Twitter public timeline) OR you can create your own maps. You can make your maps public, semi-private (guests need an invitation to post to the map), or private (you are the only one that can post to the map). Once you create an account, you just click on Create a New Map. Name the map and give it a subject (such as "my spring break travels" or "local biological organisms"). Then hit Save and you will immediately see the map and a mobile Flagr email where you can send your text messages or cameraphone pictures!

For example if you wanted to ask students to document local historical landmarks in their everyday experiences to the map above, they can take a picture with their cell phones of the historical artifact and immediately send it (m02pe@flagr.com) to the class Flagr map, along with a text message of the location and any other information to describe the item. So it would look like this on your cell phone...

Send to: m02pe@flagr.com
Message: Ann Arbor, MI. house of original residents

Now it will post a new "flag" on Ann Arbor with the message and or picture. Over the course of the entire school year, the class could have a large collection of finds!

Here are the Steps:
1) Login to Flagr.com and create a new account, by clicking on Sign Up.
2) Click on Create A New Map in your account.





3)Select the type of map you want to create (Public, Semi-Private, or Private)







4) Give your map a topic, name, web location, and icon









5) Now your map is ready for posting. It will automatically generate a mobile address for your map! Flag away!










Another example could be student mobile journalism, where students report on current news events happening locally or globally. Another feature of Flagr is that you don't actually have to be at the physical location in order to post from your cell to the map. For example, if I wanted to text message about a current event happening in Tennessee such as the Tornadoes, I could text the message from my house in Ann Arbor, MI, but when I send it, I could identify Nashville, Tenn as the location so it will post a "flag" in Nashville on our class map. It really forces students to know and understand geography!