New Hampshire H.S. students begin voter registration process via mobiles. Courtesy Mark Warner
I’m looking forward to this week’s session as we’ll have a chance to talk with Liz Kolb, whose book, Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education
has just been published by ISTE. We’ll be chatting with Liz via Skype and hope to be able to record the session for possible inclusion here on our blog.
You may remember from our review of the Horizon Report at the beginning of the semester, that the authors saw the timeline for adoption of mobile broadband as merely two to three years from now. They also provided some very intriguing examples of how mobiles are currently used in education. I’m sure as we talk with Liz, she’ll be able to share with us even more ideas about how we could use cells with our students.
In countries where the infrastructure for land-based broadband Internet access is lacking, mobile phones appear to have met that need in some very powerful and empowering ways as you can see from their use in various parts of Africa as described in this series of articles from ReadWriteWeb. You’ll find these articles listed in our diigo group bookmarks for handy reference.
This session won’t be solely devoted to mobile phones, however. We’ll also take a look at a variety of browser-based environments that support online collaboration that could be useful for distance learning, blended learning, conferences, research and projects, to name just a few examples.
As you complete the readings for this week, be sure to start formulating the questions you’d like to ask Liz. You can post them here if you’d like to start the discussion going.
