Journal 4

Form Toy to Tool By:Liz Kolb

Are cell phones harmful to the classroom? Some teachers think that cell phones disturb while being in class, but cell phones are also part of students everyday existence. Cell phones are used to communicate and to collaborate with the world. Cell phones are learning tools. As teachers, we can show the students how to use their cell phone as tools for reconstructing knoledge. Students can create blogs, collect and store data, and develop multimedia projects. They can learn while having fun with their phones. Audioblogging with a cell phone helps students to conduct interview activities. Students have an instant recording and storage device instead of using microphones, tape recorders, and digital recorders. This article shows how to set up an audioblogging for a blog. Its easy. It only takes fifteen minutes. We have to remember the importance of considering fair use and copyright when students are posting to the internet. Why? Its the law. A concern about audioblogging which is privacy and protecting students, but a solution for this is to use blogzy.com, a password protected site that allows for cell phone audiobogs. There are some fees for some of the programs. A teacher may let a student bring a cell phone to class, but nedds boundaries to make sure the students are using the phone properly in class.