Technological Innovation

As more than one billion phones are produced each year, mobile phones are benefiting from unprecedented innovation, driven by global competition. New capabilities in terms of hardware and software are turning mobiles into indispensable tools.

This begins the first blog post of my eLearning Design PD that I’m undertaking over the next few weeks. I’m reluctant to call them mobile phones these days and instead reserve the right to call them mobile devices because more often then not they are used a lot more for other functions than to simply call mum and dad because you’re going to be running late for that Sunday roast. You often hear stories of teachers berating their students for having such mobile devices on.  Only the other day I was told by one teacher that he tells his students to turn off their iPhones while in his classroom.  Why???? They are such a potential to an individuals learning processes than even students can imagine. Now I am biased, if it’s not an iPhone then it’s not a mobile device.  So my experiences are somewhat jaded and that can be seen through the rest of this blog article.

What can I do on my iPhone

Make Phone Calls

Even if I more so refer to them as Mobile Devices, it essentially in essence is a Phone, so making phone calls is a given.  Students can call me (even at odd times in the morning) for help.

Send Text

And now with the recent 3.0 upgrade I can send MMS [finally!!!] … great, students can now send me visual evidence of work that I can save as a jpeg and there we have some evidence of assessment.

Browse the Internet

What?  You mean you can sit at any location and surf the net.  What will they think of next! And with the added benefit of Wi-Fi hotspots I don’t even have to use up my precious data limit.  My students can go to sites on the go and learn.

Send Email

Yep, I can send emails out instead of text.  More text, more recipients all in the one message.

iPod

So my students hate listening to me drone on and on about the latest in Web Security, why not give them some Podcasts and they can listen while on the train or bus on their way to campus so they’re fully prepared before sitting down for a lengthy discussion on web security that we can later put into practice.  Better yet, why don’t I send them a video that they can watch.

Applications

These nifty little pieces of programs are fantastic, I can:

• Network
• Socialise
• Tweet
• FaceBook
• YouTube
• Wiki
• Blog
• Read
• Listen
• Watch
• Chat
• Collaboate
• Work

And a lot lot more by knowing what apps I can download and what they can do to help my productivity. That’s the basics … now for the Innovation. Actually, I won’t talk to you about it, let me show you. How do you think your students will react if you had this capability in the classroom?