Cell Phones! Cell Phones! Cell Phones!

I'm surprised students are not picketing in front of schools standing up for their right to use cell phones in school chanting "Cell Phones! Cell Phones!".  I understand the administration's point of view, they could be used inappropriately for cheating, etc.  What if we used cell phones for positive things?

Well, Med krarbach you never seem to fail me when it comes to great ideas! 

On Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. There is a review of text messaging tools that can be used to communicate with your students and/or parents.  Great Free Text Messaging Tools to Use With Your Students  links you to another page which lists 9 Awesome Group Text Messaging Tools for Teachers.  The original page (hopefully I haven’t lost you) lists four different ways to text your classes.

• Remind 101
• Celly
• StudyBoost
• SendHub

This article used a few video clips promoting these ways of communication.  I am not familiar with these, but I like how Celly allows groups to message or take polls.  Check out the video.

Wouldn’t it be great if a cell phone wasn’t banned from the classroom?  Could you imagine encouraging proper cell phone use in class?  Students would rejoice! Parents could even be in the know and could help remind students of deadlines or ask them specifically about their homework.  

Now, this is what is going on in my head:  I imagine the heavens opening up and the angels rejoicing “Hallelujah”.  Now, I may be a getting a little dramatic or I watched too many movies where this happens when something momentous happens.  To be honest I have had my share of run-ins with cell phone abusers in a cell phone prohibited classroom and it seems like we are beating our heads against the walls.  Use their love of the cell phone and rejoice!

I promise that I won't make this a habit, but...Did I forget to mention these suggestions are free?  Woohoo!  You don’t hear that too often. J