I recently wrote this article for the Education Review. It is a very concise summary of my thinking 6 months after completion of my research. “It seems somewhat ironic that while schools try to find extra funding to increase student and teacher access to ICT, the tool that many students already have in their pockets is overlooked and its use actively denied through restrictive school policy…”

I have just recently completed a literature review exploring mobile phones in the classroom. It focuses solely on mobile phones as these are the tools our students already have. Here are my conclusions and a link to the full documents.

It’s been 2 weeks since AUPOV and I am still mulling over the discussions I had and the presentations I listened to.
As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to hear Tony Herrington speak.  Tony is the Associate Professor of Adult Education and IT in Education at the University of Wollongong and his research focus is around using emerging technologies to support professional learning. I was particularly keen to hear about his research investigating the use of mobile technologies to support the professional learning of pre-service teachers.
Tony began by saying …

This report considers the impact ‘anytime’ access to information via access to the mobile internet will have on teaching and learning in the future. It explores the potential applications for mobile phones in the classroom and the skills that our students will need in order to cope with the mass of information on-demand that is available to them.

My report is finished - to final proof-reading stage anyway and I am feeling good! I thought I would pop my abstract up here for people to have a look at… The report will be made available through the efellows website in the next few weeks and no doubt I will pop a copy up on this website too.

Chris Betcher recently organised a podcast between myself and Liz Kolb.  Liz is pioneering the way for cellphones in education in America and you can read more about what she is doing in schools on her blog.  Chris managed to find a time to suit all of us across 3 time zones for a Skype chat.  He live streamed our conference call through his ustream channel which was fantastic as we had a live audience with whom we were able to interact.
The podcast sounds great.  For me it was awesome …

I find it astounding that people assume just because you may choose to use cellphones in your classroom that it means that you allow your students to text throughout your lesson.
You have got to be joking me.
It doesn’t matter what type of learning task you develop for your students - whether it involvers butcher paper and pens or cellphones, it is up to the individual teacher to manage the behaviour of their students in a way that allows them to gt the most from the learning experience.
Currently students already are …

Last week I visited an intermediate school in Napier.  I felt very privileged to be invited in to work with a class of students for an hour.   

The classroom was bright and welcoming.  I loved seeing all of the examples of student work lining the walls and hanging from the ceiling!  It felt like a great space to work in.
The students provided me with some wonderful feedback and I very much enjoyed working with them - they were extremely polite and very welcoming.One very interesting finding that came out of the …

I have been following this debate for the past week or so concerning Sydney’s Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC) where Year 9 (NZ Yr 10) English students have been allowed to “phone a friend” and have access to their mobile phones and mp3 players during assessment work. 

The Australian media has jumped on it and brought it out in to daylight in order to spark some real educational debate.  You can read a few of the articles here, here on the Sydney Morning Herald and the comments about the SMH article here.   

This blog post from PLC teacher has attracted …

I have been actively pondering what I will speak about at mobilizethis in October this year.  Since I have been in the classroom and actually getting some data  it is becoming much more clear.
Information literacy and the mobile web - Mobile Phones in Education.
I will be presenting about the research I have been undertaking as a NZ Ministry of Education eFellow.  My research considers the impact of students having personalised anytime access to the web, and the tools we as teachers are going to need to teach them to …