Mobile Learning Lab

Mobile Learning Lab

I found this lab very interesting and thought provoking. I tried out a few things in my classroom. The easiest on for me to try out in the classroom was using USB drives. I had two USB drives that I had received as a gift at educational conferences. I had assigned a group project. I was able to allow two groups to save their work on the USB drive. I had me student ask to take their group’s USB drive home. I have to admit that I was skeptical that he would bring it back the next day and he did! He had taken all of his groups summaries in Microsoft Word and combined them into one document. I thought the experience went very well. Many of my students had seen USBs but had never gotten a chance to use one. Since a large number of students do not have a computer at home, they have never needed to use one. I was glad that I was able to show them this technology.

I also used Poll Everywhere to create a poll for students to respond to. The website is blocked in my district, so I create the poll at home and asked students to respond via text message for homework. I then accessed the poll from home to see the results. Not all students responded, but I received more responses to this poll than I did for the survey I created earlier in the class. I was happy with the results and happy with how many students participated in the poll without me having to hound them. Several students even came in the next day asking about the results. That is a FIRST! Very exciting and I look forward to using it more in the future. I will be asking for permission to have students text their responses in class. My district currently does not allow students to have cell phones out in class and they are definitely not allowed to use them. I am hoping that I will be allowed to have students use them for this purpose. I might even sneak a poll session in here and there. I just might have to get students to cooperate with putting them away quickly if need be.

I really feel this could be a great way to get students to participate in class discussions and answer questions in class without feeling self-conscious. In Alternative Ed it is often hard to get students to willingly respond to questions in class. They are too worried about how others will react if they speak up. This would be a great way to allow students to anonymously respond and in turn gain confidence.