PODs in the Classroom

Great quote from this interview of Sonya Woloshen speaking about personally owned devices (PODs) in the classroom.

We will always know a cell phone. We will always know an iPod. We need to learn to use these tools for learning. 

This is part 1 in a series of 2009 interviews by Dave Truss. Check out part 3, Expectations and Attitudes.

Two of the classes I currently teach are BYOL (bring your own laptop). The other three classes are totally online. So, I suppose all of my current students rely almost exclusively on their own personal devices. I believe this empowers my students, preservice educators, to become more technologically competent. They need to personally invest in their own professional development and realize the potential of their own devices before they'll effectively incorporate technology into their own teaching.

Thanks to one of my students, Lindsey, who posted the above video to her own blog recently.

Preschoolers and Mobile Technology

A November 2010 report describes the affects of new media and mobile technologies on young children and their families. The report, Learning: Is there an app for that?, touts the educational benefits of well-designed mobile apps for preschoolers. It also cites the reality of preschoolers using mobile devices--often, their parent's device passed to them in the backseat, a phenomenon labeled the "pass-back" effect. I'm familiar with the practice.

This Tech & Learning article summarizes the findings of the report and provides additional information. For example, a 2009 content analysis of the iTunes App Store (education section) revealed that 60% of the top-selling paid applications targeted toddlers and preschoolers.

When I upgraded my smartphone recently, I removed the sim card from my old iPhone and Magda set it up for Lucy to use as an iPod Touch. When I commented about this recently in a backchannel during class, one of our students (future teacher) asked what does a 3-year old need with an iPod? Well, Lucy loves to...

• Take pictures--even photo essays of sorts of her dolls and environment. 
• Swipe thru pictures she has taken and also of our family and friends
• Watch movies--home movies from our Flip camera, episodes of her favorite shows, movies downloaded from YouTube (her channel and others)
• Record and listen to herself singing songs--sometimes to recall the melody of a song to begin singing it. 
• Listen to music
• Play--some apps support cognitive development while others build fine motor skills (psychomotor) or appeal to her emotionally (affective domain).
• Explore. She's just curious to figure out what the device can do. I believe this is particularly important, because she is developing a fluency with new interfaces and input devices (gestures, voice recognition, etc.). 

Now, we just need to mount one of these interactive displays on the wall in her preschool classroom!

Update:
Lucy's teacher, Donna, just directed me to this related Sesame Street video. :-)

Smartphones in 3rd grade

This morning's Classroom 2.0 Live webinar about an innovative partnership between Verizon and an Ohio public school district providing smartphones to students beginning in third grade was amazing! If you don't catch the full recording archive (or even if you do), do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to watch this 21st Century Learning Preview (1 minute) and then 21st Century Learning Mobile Learning Devices (8 minutes).

Kudos to St. Marys City Schools and Verizon for a truly inspiring achievement!

Image: Screen capture from the Verizon Business Tools web site