Is a VideoPhone in Your Future? Will They Come into Classrooms?

We've heard talk about videophone technology for some time, but it is available now through a company called ACN. The phone is the Iris 3000™ and it has a seven inch monitor. With Iris, you see the person or people you are talking with as in videoconferencing. Donald Trump suggests it's "the next big thing and will revolutionize the way we communicate." Besides its videoconferencing-like abilities, with it you can leave video mail, use your phone as a video picture frame, project onto a large screen, all for less than $100 for a two-year contract and about $30 a month. Like all new technologies, you can probably think of positives and negatives relating to the use of these phones. How will our children, our students use them? Will they be of use to us in education? FYI, you can turn off the video in case you are not quite ready for the caller to see you.

iPhone Art Competition

Those 15 and older are invited to enter the Ten One Design $500 Art Challenge. Artwork must be drawn with a Pogo Stylus, which is a like a small pen with a fuzzy tip. It's designed to help you avoid all those mistakes you might make when using your fingers on your phone's touch screen. It's saved me many times from calling the wrong person in my Favorites list, but I've never attempted to draw with it. That's the challenge for you and your students. By July 1, 2009, you'll want to check out those art apps and think creatively. Check the official rules before getting started.

Learning to Change—Changing to Learn

The YouTube video Learning to Change—Changing to Learn describes what schools might be like in the future if technology were used to prepare students for life. In it we hear about 21^st Century Skills, how teachers must learn to use the tools of technology to help their students with these skills, and how we need to give teachers time to help them keep up with what's best for educating their students. The video stimulates thought about what a school is—is it a place, a community, a world? It asks us to think about where our students learning most of what they know about technologies. After watching the video, be sure to browse through some of the comments. The motivation for us to change is there in the video, but changing is the difficult part. How do we keep the best of what our schools and curricula have today and merge this into the best of what technology has to offer?

Looking for Places to Recycle and Get Money for Your Recycling?

Going Green isn't always as easy to accomplish as it sounds, but some online companies can help. At GreenSchoolFundRaiser.org (EcoPhones) your school can earn cash by sending in used consumer electronic devices such as cell phones, ink jet cartridges, laptop computers, MP3 players, digital cameras and digital video cameras. You'll need to register to schedule a free pick-up and to download free promotional materials, tax deduction receipts, and shipping labels. There's a pdf price list that will give you an idea of what the pricing is per items. The group will pay something for every phone and many other digital devices even though they may be damaged or do not appear on the price list. Be sure to read the Fundraising Program Rules, which explains exactly what types of items will be accepted by EcoPhones.

Big Brother Knows Where You Are

It's called social mapping, and it means that people can tell where you are through your cell phone connection. You see it on television shows all the time. CSI investigators locate criminals without a problem, don't they? It doesn't work exactly like that in real life for citizens like our students and us. To use social mapping, the software has to be loaded onto phones (or computers, in some cases) and users must specify who they will allow to locate them. They also can tell the software to reveal their exact location or perhaps only that they are in a certain city. Keep in mind that if the system uses GPS, the locating can be very accurate; if it's by phone towers, it can be miles off. Google is coming out with Latitude, a system that works with Google Maps, and there are other social mapping programs like Loopt and BrightKite. With the mapping programs, parents could keep track of where their children are and friends could find each other. —But when you consider the possible problems of pre-teens and teens with peer relationships and the worry that some young people might open their tracking to "friends" they don't really know, questions arise about this type of software. Could peer pressure cause some students to opt-in to tracking when it's not wise? Very likely.

Fun Kids' Activities for iPhone & iPod Touch

For $2.99, you can download to iPhones and iPod Touch interactive "children's books" packed with activities young children will enjoy. They can "rub" the screen to uncover pictures, listen to stories, color pictures, read aloud, and create paintings—right on an iPhone or iPod Touch. The first book is available at the Apple APPs Store, and new ones should be coming out about once a month. The reviews look very positive for this new type of book for preschool and primary level students. You can link to the Apple Apps Store from ikidsplay.com or from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Print versions of the books are available online and at bookstores according to CoolestGadgets.com. Does this announcement get your brain whirling about possibilities of handheld technologies to support school curricula?

Don't Forget Common Sense Media

Common Sense Media is a site that can help educators keep up with what's happening with media for kids. It's also a great site to recommend to parents of your students.  There they can get the scoop on the latest movies, books, DVDs, television shows, video games, and Web sites so that they can decide what is appropriate for their children. Some of the advice articles on the site include helping kids understand political advertisements, learning about addictive behaviors, helping parents understand social networking sites, learning about food marketing for kids, and providing parents with what they need to know about cell phones, video games, and MP3 devices. Signing up for the Common Sense Newsletter is easy. Just enter your email address and zip code.

What to Do with iPhones in Education?

Technology and Learning's Wesley Fryer, in his article Going Mobile and his blog offers suggestions for the many ways iPhones and other Internet-capable phones can be used in education. He recommends 43 Actions for managing To-Do Lists, using iPhones to listen to and view educational PodCasts without downloading them, and referencing sites like Wikipedia. In his Teach Digital: Curriculum, he lists Web 2.0  tools for cell phones. Besides Fryer's suggestions, check out WebApps for iPhones such as NASA Images, NPR News, Quillpill for creative writing, French quotes,  US Congressional Directory, iConvert and other calculating tools, Morse Code Generator and Sender, s simple function Plotter, travel guides, and references and information. In Fall 2008, Abilene Christian University freshman will have iPhones on which they can receive Podcasts and emergency alerts, access 3-D campus maps, take surveys, and work with eleven other applications developed by the school for the phones. Liz Kolb's ISTE book, Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education offers mini lessons and resources for educators who want to put cell phones to use in classrooms.

Your Professional vs. Virtual Life

When might your virtual life come in conflict with your teaching career and/or with your ability to get a teaching job? Maybe during college you posted something on a social networking site and forgot about it? Maybe you put a sexy photo online, had second thoughts about it, and then thought you'd removed all traces of it? Maybe you think what you do online won't be found by your students, their parents, or your supervisors? Today pre-service teachers and in-service teachers are finding that what they've put online can haunt or destroy their careers. Some teachers have been denied credentials, some have been suspended, and others have lost their jobs because of Web postings. The Washington Post article, When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web discusses the problems involved when sites on the Web show teachers looking and acting, well-not so professional.

Teens & Their Secret Digital Lives

Prevention Magazine (April '08) published The Secret Life of Teens and a number of other articles (Secret Life of Teens by Rich, Secret Life of Teens: Clubbing by Cuomo) and books (The Secret Life of Teens by Patnaik and Shinseki) have targeted this topic as well. Those writing about teens cover topics such as alcohol and drug abuse, teens' lives, hopes and dreams; teens' nightlife; and how to help teens survive these often exciting and dangerous years. It's evident that teens look to online communities and digital communication for interaction. Going to FaceBook, for example, helps them get away from the adults in their lives. In an online community they can share their secrets, which often aren't secrets for long. It's their world, and probably many of us ex-teens would have liked to have that world available at times when we were teens. But it's also a world that can become addictive. Aside from the possibility of online dangers, there's the danger that teens are so drawn to digital communities that they go there instead of interacting with those around them. It's not just online communities that are keeping our students from being part of the real world. Katie Baldo, the guidance counselor quoted in the Prevention piece warns that kids, because of being wired to their digital connections, aren't getting the practice they need with non-digital social interaction. She recommends that use of technologies such as cellphones, MP3 players, and video games be limited to one-hour on weekdays and two-hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Of course, teens and even pre-teens would say that this digital world is an important part of their real world.