Cell Phone Conferencing A Free Tool for Teaching!

Cell phones can be a handy conferencing tool for teaching and learning. Part of teaching is being able to conference with students, parents, experts, and members of the community. Often conferences and meetings are conducted face-to-face. Recently with the rise of web conferencing tools some schools are starting to take advantage of these internet-based tools for virtual conferencing and even professional development. However if students, teachers at home, parents, or other community members do not have access to the Internet, they are unable to participate in these web conferences. BUT...They can if they have a cell phone (any cell phone will do). Many conferencing tools now have call-in numbers where participants can call-in to listen to and participate in the conference session. Some of these web tools even record conferences as MP3 or Video files, which can be converted to be viewed and/or heard on cell phones as an archived file. Using a resource such as Podlinez, the mp3 files of the conferences can be given a call-in number so that people who could not attend the live conference could still call-in to hear the conference.

Below are a few conferencing resources that couple with cell phones
DimDim
Dimdim is entirely free for up to 20 participants at one time. Dimdim includes audio, video, interactive whiteboards, computer screen sharing, and document uploading in the free conference options. All Dimdim sessions can be recorded and become flash video files online. Dimdim includes a dial-in number so that those without Internet access can still hear and participate. I use Dimdim with my preservice and inservice teachers and have found that on occasion the call-in number has allowed access to some who were not at a computer at the time of the designated conference (for example I had one student who was at the Inauguration in DC during a required conference so he called in on his cell phone). Dimdim is a great option for virtual professional development workshop for teachers.

Freeconferencepro allows up to 250 people to call in on a conference at one time for free. The conferences are audio only and can be recorded and saved as mp3 files. These are very private conferences and thus would be great for parent-teacher conferencing.

Freeconferencecall has U.S. and international free conferencing numbers! People from up to 10 different countries can meet up for free on one conferencing line. This resource allows up to 96 callers on one call at a time. The calls can be recorded and immediately posted to iTunes as a podcast as well. This could be beneficial for public school meetings where some community members are unable to physically attend but would like to hear and possibly participate.

Scriblink is entirely free and uses FreeConferenceCall (described above) for the cell phone call in number. Scriblink has a collaborative whiteboard and chat room as well as the audio conference. This type of conference is great for public meetings (such as committee work or board meetings).

Phonecasting: Easy Podcasting Creation and Delivery for Students

I have been investigating a resource called Phonecasting. Phonecasting is created by the same group that developed Podlinez. I posted last year about Podlinez. Podlinez has the ability to turn any RSS feed (audio or text) into a podcast you can hear on the phone. Phonecasting offers a similar function with a bonus. Like Podlinez, Phonecasting is a free resource which allows you to listen to any podcast via landlines or cell phone. Phonecasting gives you a unique phone number to give out to all your listeners who would prefer to listen via cell phone or landlines. Besides the accessibility and convenience that Phonecasting offers with unique phone numbers, it also allows anyone to create their own phonecast via phone. I love this option!!! So many students do not have access to the Internet or software to create their own podcast outside of school. In addition some students do not have their own cell phones, so Phonecasting uses a toll-free number to record podcasts via phone. This means that any student can use landlines to record the podcast!!

Classroom Integration Ideas:
Since Phonecasting is uber-podcasting, there are a wide variety of projects one can do in K-12 classrooms. Below I highlight a few options that are unique to Phonecasting.

1) Museum Tours
Students can work with local museums to develop audio tours. This is an opportunity for students to learn about the artifacts in the museum and create an authentic tool for the museum.

2) Local Walking Tours
Students can create a virtual audio walking tour (no need for the Internet) about content from the class curricula. For example, students in a science class could create a scientific species walking tour for visitor of the city. Students could scout out local places where particular species are found, and then create an audible call-in walking tour with directions and scientific information.

3) Geography/Mathematics
Students studying geography and way-finding could create audio tours giving directions on how to get to popular local destinations. Such as the favorite local deli or a monument. They could have a call-in number associated with the directions.

4) Business Marketing
Students in a business, economics or journalism class could team with a local business and create audible coupons using Phonecasting. Students could create short audio advertisements that include the latest coupon deals. At the end of the advertisement the students could tell the listener the coupon code to use when they purchase the product.

5) School Radio On-Demand
While many schools have weekly radio broadcasts or podcasts, they are often broadcast live. When they are achieved it is usually to a website, where listeners would need Internet access in order to download and listen to the podcast. Using Phonecasting, weekly podcasts can be created and heard via cell phone or landlines on-demand rather than at a designated time or using Internet access.

Business & Economics Classes Can Go Mobile with Projects

Increasingly the business world has been including mobile marketing campaigns. For example, Little Caesars Pizza just ran a mobile marketing campaign where they asked people to text "Crazy" to 269411. H&M clothing stores are running a mobile marketing campaign that include slide shows of the latest clothing styles (link to the .mobi Swedish campaign site). This mobile campaign has a global reach, H&M's campaign spans 27 different countries! Another example is the fast food chain Jack in the Box. Jack in the Box has launched a mobile coupon option for it's customers. Jack in the Box smartly sends their coupons out at specific times a day to hit the lunch and dinner crowds.

How are companies delivering their coupons? One option is by using web resources such as Mobile Posse. Mobile Posse allows any mobile user to sign up for free coupons (while asking advertising to pay a small fee to allow Mobile Posse to distribute coupons at specific times on specific dates to their consumers who have signed up for free). When consumers receive their coupons on their cell phones they are given a special promotion code which they can use when they purchase the product.

How can Educators Simulate these Mobile Marketing Campaigns with their Students?
Economics, Social Studies, and Business Courses
Often students in economics or business classes are asked to simulate business campaigns; marketing, selling, and purchasing. Since mobile campaigns are part of the 21st century business world, it would be beneficial for students to develop their own mobile marketing campaigns. Below are a couple ways that secondary students could develop a mobile campaign...

1) Students can team up with local businesses and create mobile campaigns for them. Since most businesses do not currently have mobile marketing, this is a niche that the local middle or high schools could fill (for free!).

2) Students could create mobile campaigns for the school's activities. Such as marketing the pancake supper fundraiser for the volleyball team or marketing the Spring musical.

3) Students could develop their own product to sell and create a mobile campaign around their product.

4) Students could develop an activism campaign for a local non-profit organization.


What Tools Could They Use to Send Out the Mobile Marketing?
While most schools probably cannot afford to sign up with Mobile Posse to send out advertisements and marketing coupons, they could use other free web tools that couple with cell phones. Here are a couple ideas...
1) TxtBlaster
People can subscribe to the student's campaign with a simple SMS text message (and a Keyword). They will receive coupons and marketing information automatically when studnets send it from their TxtBlaster account. No pictures, but simple text messaging campaign.
2) TextMarks
People can subscribe to the student's campaign with a simple SMS text message (and a Keyword). They will receive coupons and marketing information automatically when studnets send it from their TextMarks account. No pictures, but simple text messaging campaign.
3) EveryWhereIGo
Students can create an entire mobile webiste devoted to the product. Automated text message coupons to customers.
4) Mofuse
Students can create an entire mobile webiste devoted to the product. In addition, MoFuse allows for tracking of hits to the site as well as easy additions (such as coupons of the week!). Also has QRcodes for each mobile website so customers can take a picture of the QRcode to get to the site (and use QRcodes as coupons).
5) Snappr
Students can use Snappr to create QRcodes as coupons or advertisements for the product/business.
6) Podlinez
Students can set up a unique phone number where people can call in and learn about a product, participate in a marketing sweepstakes, or even get a code for a coupon.

Museum Mobile Tours and Cell Phones

Visiting local museums has traditionally been a part of K-12 education. Museums have started to take advantage of the growing number of people with cell phones, by providing self-paced tours on cell phones. Museum patrons can dial a number and instantly get an audio tour (some even have image and video options for cell phones that can handle those types of media). A few resources online that provide this service (for a fee) include Museum411, Guide by Cell, and Spatial Adventures (free 30 day trial). Additionally, schools can access information or tours from a specific museum by going to MuseumPods to download free podcasts for cell phones and iPhones.

I have written in the past about MyArtSpace, where schools can post mobile images from their art museum field trips and develop lessons around their postings. As I was listening to some of these cell phone tours, I realized that creating a museum mobile tour would be another great museum project for students. Teachers could contact a local museum and ask if their students could research and then develop various cell phone audio tours. Or, teachers could have their students develop mobile walking tours of the city (historical, geographical, scientific tours). Student's in a foreign language class could offer to turn the audio English tours into bilingual tours. Instead of using one of the pay services mentioned above, students could use
YouMail or Podlinez to create the dial-in tour.

These tours could be enhanced by developing a tour that includes images and/or large text on the mobile phone. This could be done with PowerPoint on a MAC. I wrote a tutorial on how to develop enhanced PowerPoint podcasts for cell phones and how to upload them a while back. These are just a few suggestions on how students cell phones can become museum enhancing tools.

Make your student podcasts Mobile! Free!

Using a resource called Podlinez, any podcast can be heard on a telephone (or cell phone ). While I have used this resource to hear current news with CNN or my favorite NPR programs, any podcast that has an RSS feed can become mobile. Here is how...
1) Copy the RSS feed for the podcast that you would like to hear
2) Login to http://www.podlinez.com/
3) Paste the RSS feed into podlinez
4) Immediately a phone number will be generated, where you can call anytime from any phone to get the latest updates on the podcast!

It does take a few minutes for the RSS to generate into the mobile podcast (so give it ten minutes before you call in). But once you call in, you can store the number in your contact list and then call the number to hear the latest broadcast!

Classroom Applications:
1) Parents, community members, alumni can hear the latest school news with just a telephone number.
2) Also, since you can turn a blog text into an audio text with Talkr or Odiogo, those feeds can be subscribed to through Podlinez, resulting in parents being able to hear their child's latest text blog post. For example, I use Odiogo and I put my Odiogo RSS feed into Podlinez. Now you can listen to my blog posts by dialing 1-712-318-9982.

Listen By Phone

podlinez.net

This may also have application for visually impaired students.
3) Students who do not have Internet access at home can still listen to blog and newsfeeds from the class activities.