Last week I was in the Czech Republic to talk to teachers about social networking. On the same conference bill one of the talks was about the use of mobile devices in the classroom. David Bish, who gave the talk, showed how both phones and Ipads have been utilised in the EF classrooms around the world.
Almost as much fun was the post conference evening, which had geek-filled moments of ‘have you seen this app, do you use this’. These show and tell moments albeit somewhat informal were a great way to learn something new but more of that in another post, for now back to the talk.
Of the number of ideas and activities David showed, three stood out for their sheer simplicity.
The mobile device ring tone as a buzzer for team games. This is such a simple but excellent way of utilising the students’ phones and letting them be used in a meaningful way. Perhaps as a first step to further use.
Secondly, the talk introduced the idea of using a traffic light on the screen of an Ipad (in this case the teacher’s Ipad). The traffic light can be used to indicate when it is ok to use a mobile device in an exercise. Red means you can’t, green you can and amber only if you must. Of course this can be extended to it simply being a classroom management device as a whole i.e. for timing an activity.
There are quite a few traffic light apps in the store. One designed for such a purpose is Stop go! which is also free to download.
Another free app he showed was Whiteboard, which of course is just what the name suggests.
However Ipads using the app on the same wifi network can connect and colloborate - thus making is great for describe and guess type actitvities (see post on draw something) and if you are like me and my colleague you can send each other messages when you're supposed to be listening.