Hey Y'all,
I am really excited about what I read on one of my blogs today. The entry is entitled "5 Tips for Classroom Management With Mobile Devices". Classroom management is one of those topics that I am always interested in reading about and seeing what new strategies people have come up with. Most of the suggestions made weren't anything too innovative and didn't excite me that much - except for one.
The write contends that engagement is the key to having strong classroom management. Jennifer Carey says that it is key for teachers to keep their students engaged in lessons by relating to them - and I totally agree - connecting to students by "playing to their passions". She then brings brilliant tool to incorporate the use of cell phones during class. I clicked the link to the website and cannot get over how cool it is!
The website is called Socrative. I am so impressed with the ideas from this website and I think its a perfect way to tackle the problem so many teacher faces of students using their cell phones in class. Have a look at the link and play around on the website: http://www.socrative.com/
My favorite tool on the website is one of the assessments. Each student is able to rate how well they understood what was taught in class. When I was a student in high-school I was always nervous and shy to ask questions in-front of the whole class (surprising I know!). Using a website / app like this is a great way for such students to express honestly whether they understood or need further explaining. Using the vast array of tools on Socrative is a way for teacher to meaningfully gauge student progress and helps keep students focused on tasks.
The other tip I liked from this blog was the idea of having the students put their cell phones on their desks but face down. Most of the time when a teacher says put your phone away, it only encourages the students yearn to keep checking their phones secretly from their pocket. By having it out there on the desk, students are less prone to check their text messages, that is according to Carey - and I tend to agree!
That's it for now...until next time...
Have a good one! :)
Naomi I was very interested in this post because I'm always torn between the desire to use cellphones in the classroom on one hand, or to totally ban them on the other. I realize that the way things are going it's more logical to "go with the flow" and take advantage of the phone and sometimes I do. However, although I work in a HS, believe it or not some students don't own phones, so I feel it would be wrong to require them as a basic tool.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that within a few years this obstacle will disappear as the phones become more common and indispensable, even for younger kids.
Naomi!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing that tool!! That is so cool!! I would love to try that out in my class! Have you tried it? It could work for any type of lesson- vocab, grammer, comprehension- amazing! I'm just wondering if schools will allow using the phones in class- I am definitely going to ask!
I enjoyed reading your post, thanks for sharing your insights with us, espically concerning the Socrative tool. However ALTHOUGH it is very cool and fun for the students to use their cellphones for a learning purposes, I don't think it will work with our students, in an online world with the "Whats'up" and "Facebook" distractions. Maybe the advanced students will use it as requested, but all the rest probably will waste their times in surffing the net using their cellphones. In addition I didn't really get the advantage of this tool as opposed to the traditional tool. Why should I make a quiz or excersises using this tool instead of just doing it in a much more simple way - handing them out? I think it would take much more time than the traditional way would have taken. Maybe once in a while it will be worthwhile, and only with the advanced and the mature students.
ReplyDeleteHi Naomi,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all- this tool looks really cool and I loved the way you wrote about it.
However, I tend to agree with Tzivia and Alon about the problems it creates- what happens if not a 100% of the students own a smartphone? It's not fair towards those who don't, even if they are not many... Also- using a smartphone in class is really distracting, so maybe at the beginning the students will get excited about this tool and cooperate with you, but sooner or later they'll go back to the things they usually do- Facebook or whatsapp etc. And you can't really control it... So it's problematic, maybe we can use it every once in a while like Alon said...