Mobile Learning Blog Posts by Jackie Gerstein

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Mobile Learning Jackie Gerstein

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The original blog can be found at http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/

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All rights reserved by the author. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the author. Manufactured by

on January 3, 2012

Contents

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Mobile Learning: Learners As Informed Consumers, Creative Producers, and Active Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Team and Community Building Using Mobile Devices . . . . . Facilitating Learner Voice and Presence in the Classroom Using Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Instructional Activity: Student-Produced Viral Videos . . . . Using Mobile Devices and Technology to Enhance Emotional Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Experiential, Mobile-Device Driven Communications Exercise A Texting Communications Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Own Mobile Devices and Celly Provide Peer Feedback Flipped Classroom Full Picture: An Example Lesson . . . . . . Every Educator Has a Story . . . Just Tell It. . . . . . . . . . . . Win As Much As You Can Mobile Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . A Technology-Enhanced Lesson on Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . A End-of-Course Student Survey: The Use of Mobile Devices for Class Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 23 29 35 41 46 50 54 64 66 72 78

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Mobile Learning: Learners As Informed Consumers, Creative Producers, and Active Participants

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Children and young people are using their own mobile devices – Pods, iPads, netbooks, laptops, and smart phones – to be consumers and producers of digital content, and to be active participants in online communities. They are doing so as part of their day-to-day lives outside of school as leisure time activities. They are familiar and comfortable with social networking and using a variety of apps via their devices. The 2010 Nielsen’s Teen Mobile Reportreported that “94% percent of teen subscribers self-identify as advanced data users, turning to their cellphones for messaging, Internet, multimedia, gaming, and other activities like downloads.”

When educators leverage this informal learning by giving agency to the students to use their mobile technologies AND by providing the structure and skills for their use within more formal educational settings, motivation and learning is increased. (Learn more about Agency and Structure, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_agency .) By bringing these experiences into the classroom, consumption of content becomes more informed, production of online content more creative, and participation as global citizens more active and directed. Informed Consumers. Learners are consuming real time and constant news with Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other newsfeeds via their mobile devices. In more formal learning environments, learners can be given the

agency to access this information and provided with the skills to make informed and critical decisions as to its relevance, efficacy, and credibility. Creative Producers. Young people are taking pictures and creating video using their mobile devices. Pulling out mobile devices during real world photo-ops is commonplace. Although many young people have the desire to produce media that is creative, attention-grabbing, and has high production value, many lack the knowledge and where-with-all to do so. When this desire to produce media enters into a mobile learning environment, the education setting can provide a combination the right instruction; and apps for planning, filming and editing. Learners-as-producers not only increases the potential for creative and higher quality media, but also additional avenues for them to develop and showcase their content-related learnings.

Active Participants. Mobile technologies have provided digital access to many who do not have access via computers and in-home Internet. This includes lower SES individuals from developed countries as well as those in third world countries. This anytime, anywhere, and with almost anyone capability makes mobile learning ripe for collaborating globally and developing global stewardship. It levels the educational landscape permitting communication and collaboration between diverse groups of learners.

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Team and Community Building Using Mobile Devices Cell phones today allow users to do so much more than just a few years ago. Students can use their cell phones to write and send text messages, take and send digital photos, and even take and send short digital video clips, in addition to making phone calls. http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/ ←howtoarticles/cell−phones−in−the−classroom\\ As such, mobile devices provide great opportunities for learning. One such use is for team and community building. What follows is a list of smartphone-based, community-building activities. About Me C

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Ask participants to locate a photo, song, or video from their mobile device that best represents them. Each person then shares his or her media and the reason it was selected. Bringing portable speakers can assist with the sharing of songs so others can hear them. Source: Jackie Gerstein

Playlists

• Prior to the activity, create a list of at least 10 categories of playlists. Possible categories include pop music, boy band music, country music, holiday music, bits of TV or movie dialogue, classical music, college fight songs, love songs, TV or movie theme music, and cartoon character voices.

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• For the activity itself, have participants form teams of about 10 members each, then ask all participants to make sure that their cell phones are turned on. Next, tell them that you are going to call out a playlist category. If they have this style of ringtone in their phone, they have to find it, hold up their phone, and play the appropriate ringtone (or music) for everyone.

• Points awarded to groups based on how many in group can ”play” the sound. • Example List – Boy band – Girl band

– Love song – TV or Movie tune – Cartoon or movie Voice – Voice of significant other – A phone ring – Your own voice • Source:http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all−products/ ←Team−Building−Activities−for−the−Digital−Age−eBook Categories – Do you have? • Form students in small groups. C

• Ask them to find a picture on their mobiles that contains (just one per group to get a point) – Pet

– Grandparents CM

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– Something in Nature – Person doing a sport’s activity – A group of friends • Source: http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all−products/ ←Team−Building−Activities−for−the−Digital−Age−eBook • Alternative – ask each small group to assign one person to take digital photos during some of the small group activities (e.g., team-building activities). This person should be told nothing but to get a visual record of the group during the activities. After the a number of group activities, this activity can be conducted. • Call out the following. If the the photographer for that small group has that image, then they get a point. – Picture of someone with the GPS – A Group Shot

– A close up of someone concentrating – A close up of someone smiling – Someone helping another person – A picture with hands • Source – Jackie Gerstein

Spot the Eyes

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• In small groups, ask group members to take close ups of one another’s eyes.

• Show the entire group the pics using the LCD – other group members guess whose eyes they are. This is a good name game. • Alternative – group members can send the facilitator full face shots and eyes-only shots of themselves. The facilitator can post these randomly on Flickr, a Wiki, 0r Facebook. Group members then attempt to match the faces with the eyes. • Safety – only first names should be used. Pictures should only be head and eye shots.

• Source: http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all−products/ ←Team−Building−Activities−for−the−Digital−Age−eBook • Alternative: Jackie Gerstein

Community Puzzle

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• Separate group into smaller groups. • Explain – Your group is to use images from you cell phones to create a group story. The story can be sequential where one cell phone picture leads logically to the next. Cell phones and the pictures can only be used once to tell the story. The logic and connection to be obvious to the viewer with little or no need for verbal explanation. • Source: Jackie Gerstein

Values Photos • Ask participants to choose their three top values. They can be given a list of values. • Give participants the task to locate objects in their environment that symbolize these values and take a photo using their mobile devices. • Photos with directions are directly emailed to a Flickr page set up for this purpose. Lisa Nielson describes this process in her blog entry, Using Flickr to Collect Images Captured on Cell Phones.

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Texting Gossip – Telephone M

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• Prior to the activity, choose a phrase (with fewer than 300 characters) that has meaning to your group and translate it for text messaging (for help, visit http://transl8it.com/cgi−win/index.pl). Make sure that all participants have one another’s cell phone numbers stored in their own phone’s memory. • After arranging the group in a circle, text your message to the first person (it helps to have the message already loaded into your phone). The person who receives the text then whispers the message to the next person in the circle. That person must then text the message to the next person. Continue in this fashion (i.e., alternating texts and whispers) until the last person receives the message via either text or whisper. The last person then verbally shares the message with the entire group. • Example: – Fear stops you in your tracks. Self confidence propels you forward. to Fear stops U n yor tracks. Self confidNc propels U 4ward. • Discuss problems with texted gossip

• Source: http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all−products/ ←Team−Building−Activities−for−the−Digital−Age−eBook Human Machine • Separate group into smaller groups – 4 to 8 per group. • The group’s task is the create a human machine that has the following attributes – Two cell phones that are to be ”synchronized” in some manner to make a sound – One or two cell phones that create some type of visual effect for the machine – All group members need to be connected in some way. – At least half the arms and half the legs of the group need to be moving in some way.

– A group spokesperson needs to be able to explain the purpose and function of the machine.

• Source: Jackie Gerstein

Two Truths and a Lie • Each group members takes or locates (copyright free or creative commons) three images – two that represent ”facts” about them; one that is plausible but really a ”lie”. These should be symbols rather than portrait type shots . . . a favorite dog, a flower if likes gardening, a country’s flag is from or visited that country.

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• These are uploaded on a ”public” site such as Facebook, a Wiki, or Flickr only with a brief caption. Remember that the goal is to fool others so the third picture, the lie, needs to seem like a truth. • Other members guess which one is the lie by leaving their guess in the comment section. • Safety: Only first names are used. No pictures of self, family member, or friends

• Source: Jackie Gerstein Building Communications • The facilitator builds a prototype model using Legos or another building kit. • Two or three volunteers act as the communicators. They have the prototype in their location. The rest of the group is in a remote location. They have all the parts of the prototype but it needs to be built as an exact replication of the prototype. The communicators either text or voice chats with the group who must build the prototype based on these directions. • Two or three times during the building process – a ”runner” from the building time can run over and view the original prototype. C

• If the group struggles with the task, they can send an image to the receiver. • Pictures of ”results” can uploaded onto Facebook or a Website – and placed side-by-side for comparison. • Source: Jackie Gerstein

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Text a Group Story â&#x20AC;˘ One person starts a story â&#x20AC;&#x201C; either a word, phrase, or sentence (can be negotiated with the group or predetermined by the leader), and texts this to the next group member who adds a word, phrase, or sentence. When it gets to the last person, s/he reads the story aloud.

• If done virtually, the last person can post the story onto a wiki, website, or Facebook. • Source: Jackie Gerstein Memory • Form smaller groups – 6 to 8 people per group. • Group members choose an image or single word to display on each of their cell phones. • The phones are laid out on a table. • The other groups are give a minute to memorize the images-words. • The group that collectively remembers the most cell phone displays wins. C

• Each group is given a chance to display their cell phones. • Source: Jackie Gerstein

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Pass the Task

• Smaller groups of 6 to 8 members are formed with equal number of members per group.

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• Give members some time to get the phone number of the person who is ”next in line”. • Group members are given slips of paper with tasks. Each smaller group gets the same slips. • The first person looks at his/her slip and texts the task to the next person. The next person does the task, then looks at his/her slip, and finally, texts this task to the next person. • The first group to complete • Tasks: – Hop 10 times on one foot

– Hum or whistle your favorite song. – Shake hands or high five the next person in line. – Do Head, Shoulder, Knees, Toes three times. – Pat your head and rub your tummy – Say Sally Sells Seashells at the Seashore three times • Clarity in communication?? • Source: http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all−products/ ←Team−Building−Activities−for−the−Digital−Age−eBook Spot the Difference • This activity is like the Find the Eight (or so) Differences between the two pictures. C

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• Group members take an original-first group picture. They then make subtle changes – eight to ten of them – to the group. It could be change of clothing, hair, background, etc. • Each set of pictures is displayed via some sort of LCD. The other groups are to identify the differences. • Virtual – individuals can do this using their home setting – making the eight alterations in the scene. The two images could then be uploaded to Facebook or a wiki.

• Source: Jackie Gerstein Reflections • As a debrief for the day’s team building activities, ask participants to go a take picture of something that represents that day’s events. • Ask participants to use a song or ringtone to go with that image. • Source: Jackie Gerstein Texting or Facebook Feedback Students send their classmates via textbook or Facebook three adjectives that describe their classmates’ performance during the class activities.

Using Mobile Devices to Create a Personalized Feeling Chart Students are introduced to the feelings cards by selecting the cards that matched their feelings at that moment . . .

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In small groups, students select 10-15 feelings cards and set up scenarios that represented each of feelings selected. They used their own mobile device to take photos of these images . . .

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The photos are directly uploaded to Flickr via an email. The full process is described by Lisa Nielson in Using Flickr to Collect Images Captured on Cell Phones.

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The uploaded images create a personalizedfeelings poster. Students are provided with scenarios and asked to locate on the Interactive White Board which of these displayed images that they created best represented how they would feel in that situation.

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Texting Communications Activity M

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This activity is an adaptation of theBack-to-Back Communications Exercise. Students pair up. One volunteered to give the directions, the other to be the drawer. They exchange phone numbers and the drawers go to another room. The direction givers are provided with the following drawing and told to text in words (one student asked if he could send a picture) the description of the drawing. The goal was for the drawer to reproduce the drawing to scale.

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Facilitating Learner Voice and Presence in the Classroom Using Mobile Devices I recently started another face-to-face class with undergraduates – about 3/4 of them in the 18-20 age group. I work towards a learner-centric classroom based on the following principles: 1. Give learners multiple opportunities to be heard and seen through multiple modalities – verbal, written, visual. 2. Get to know each learner as an individual – this is in line with my belief of the educator as an ethnographer. Really see every learner in the room. 3. Insure that the learners see one another as much as (or better yet more than) the content and the teacher. C

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4. Provide ongoing opportunities to connect with the learners and for them to connect with each other. 5. Use strategies, tools, and materials that the learners use outside of the school 6. Make sure learners know that they are significant, important, that they matter- see Angela Maiers You Matter. 7. Use learning activities that are engaging and authentic with the knowledge that the learners are giving their time (and sometimes money) to be in the learning environment. (I feel an obligation not to ”steal” my learners time with activities that are boring, useless – painful for them.) As such, my first classes are always focused on having the students get to know one another and building a sense of community. The only contentrelated activity during the first class is going over the syllabus which occurs during hour 3 or 4 of the class – not the first activity. Another one of my driving principles is continual improvement. I have been an educator for a few decades but I am always looking for ways to improve my courses. Mobile technologies have evolved to a point where they can be leveraged in the class. What follows are the mobile activities

I used in this course to get to know the learners, have them get to know one another, and build a sense of community. About Me Students located a photo, song, or video from their mobile devices that best represented them. Learners then shared their media and the reasons for their selections.

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Every student had a mobile device with personal content on it. Even though the majority of students were under 21, a few were in their 20s and two were over 40 years old. Most students selected a photo to share, two selected videos, and two shared a favorite song.

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Values Photos Students were asked to choose their most important 10 values from a list of values. They were then asked to narrow their list to three values, their core values. This was followed up with giving them the task of finding objects around the school that symbolized these values. Once found, they took pictures of the objects using their mobile devices and emailed the photos directly to a Flickr page set up for this purpose. Lisa Nielson describes this process in her blog entry, Using Flickr to Collect Images Captured on Cell Phones.

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I can unequivocally say that there was close to 100% engagement by 100% of the 16 students the entire 3 hours of this first class. Guess Whose Eyes My goal is to continue this engagement and connection outside of the classroom. A Facebook page has been established to have them post their class reflections and for addition community building activities. For example, I took photos of each studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes during the first class. These were

posted on Facebook as Guess Whose Eyes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; students are already making their guesses.

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Facebook for Class Reflection . . . and the reviews have begun to come in via their class reflections on the course Facebook page.

. . . a response.

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This significance of this post cannot be understated. The young woman who posted this is extremely shy and reserved (possibly has Aspergerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s syndrome). She told me at a break that she is not a people person. Watching the magic occur during these learner-centric activities cannot be understated. Seeing the engagement, smiles, connections happen during class is why I am an educator.

An Instructional Activity: Student-Produced Viral Videos I implemented my plan to have my undergraduates (mostly 18 to 20 year old students) create ”viral” videos for one of our in-class activities. The first part of this post is geared towards educators and administrators. It provides a rationale for this type of learning activity. The second part describes the characteristics that help define a viral video so that these attributes can be presented to the students. Young People’s Use of YouTube The rationale for this activity is based on How Teens Use YouTube & Social Media: The Online Generation Gap:

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1. Teenagers today see online video as a normal every-day type of activity. During middle school and high school years, YouTube is always a hugely popular platform. Most teens consider it to be the “normal” way of watching video (as opposed to television). Certain YouTube videos would take the younger generation by storm; they’d be talked about in the hallways of schools to even the dining table at home. It’s just about impossible for teens to remember the days before YouTube and other online video websites. 2. Teens Share More Videos Than The Older Generation. Teenagers consume these videos as they would gossip and TV shows and magazines – whatever video makes an impression on them, they share. 3. Creating videos for this generation comes as naturally as creating an essay in school. Teenagers are not only creative; they are very impressionable. They express their findings in life both verbally and visually, through all means of technology. Encouraging Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity Given these ”knowns”, asking teen and young adult students to produce their own videos related on the content begin covered in class should facilitate an engaging and authentic learning activity. This learning activity also

addresses some of the 21st Century Learning Skills: the 4 Cs – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity – as proposed by Ken Kay (via Edutopia) and the Partnership for 21st Century Learning. P21 & FableVision collaborated to release an animated film about the 4 Cs:

Assignment – Producing a Viral Video

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My young adult students will not be interested in any of the above information. This is provided for educators and administrators to gain an understanding regarding how and why integrating the production of videos can enhance learning. They will be interest in the characteristics of what makes a viral video. • Make them laugh.. or cry. The best way to compel someone to send a video to friends and family is to stir up emotion, whether it’s laughing or crying. There are some common traits among the most viral videos – ”music, dancing, attractive women, Candid Camerastyle pranks, children and topical and political references’ (Lauren Dell). • Keep it short and snappy. A video needs to be easily ”consumed by a multitasking generation” – viewers shouldn’t have to watch a longform video to get the joke. ”Keep your clip or video short, interesting, edgy and give us a surprise that makes us want to forward it to our friends” (Lauren Dell).

• Surprising Contrast. When we see two things that don’t normally belong together, and someone finds a way to make them belong, the reaction it creates is one of surprise. For example, Big guy with a little voice; small girl with big voice - Do you remember the little girl who sang opera on YouTube and how quickly her videos spread? (Jim Chao) • Three things every video should have: – Authenticity – Connection—humorous (The Annoying Orange), touching (Transcending), or surprising (Susan Boyle). – Visceral—We’re all really, REALLY busy. Unless we’re moved on a gut level, we won’t forward anything (L. Drew Gerber). C

• Include one or more of the following as viral videos tend to include these types of content: – Pranks – Dancing – Music

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– Political humor – Song parodies – Video blogs – How to (Eric Olson) In-Action These suggestions were presented to my interpersonal communications students (18 to 20 years old) along with the desirable content – to demonstrate via different types of nonverbal behavior as presented at Nonverbal Modes. They worked on these in small groups during class time. Here is one example:

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The results are not that great as you can see but the students were engaged (quite difficult with this particular class of young college students) and they learned about nonverbal behaviors. . . . and this parting shot of a short clip written and produced by my gifted students from a few years back.

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Using Mobile Devices and Technology to Enhance Emotional Intelligence I often start my blogs with a rationale for how and why I teach the way I do. Here are a few related to the activity I describe in this post. 1. Classroom activities should be authentic, engaging, and studentcentric. Students can learn the theory on their own time using the textbook and media (PPTs, Slidehares, Videos). Face-to-face class time should be spent on having students experience the concepts. 2. Classroom activities can and should be continually tweaked to reflect the current out-of-class environments, culture, and society-atlarge. Currently, I am asking myself, â&#x20AC;?How can I integrate the mobile devices that my young college students are using in their own lives into our learning activities?â&#x20AC;? C

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3. Along with my goal of continuous improvement of learning activities comes the desire and need for continuous reflection. I view it as an informal type of action-research which includes my observations and student written reactions to and reflections about the class activities. The Activity: Using Mobile Devices to Create a Personalized Feeling Chart Students were introduced to the feelings cards by selecting the cards that matched their feelings at that moment . . .

In small groups, students selected 10-15 feelings cards and set up scenarios that represented each of feelings selected. They used their own mobile device to take photos of these images . . .

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The photos were directly upload to Flickr via an email. The full process is described by Lisa Nielson in Using Flickr to Collect Images Captured on Cell Phones.

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As you can see the uploaded images created a personalizedfeelings poster. Students were provided with scenarios and asked to locate on the Interactive White Board which of these displayed images that they created best represented how they would feel in that situation.

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Reflections â&#x20AC;˘ This class meets once a week from 6 to 9:40 PM. Most of the students are within the 18-20 age group. Because it is an evening course and many of the students work, they are tired when they come to class. As I stated above, I do not use our time together to lecture. The first half of this nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s class was used doing some self-assessments

and large group discussion. Student interest faded in and out with some students being more actively involved in the discussions. The activity described above was introduced about midway through the class. The energy level of the students rose dramatically, all students engaged, all laughing, smiling and enjoying themselves and what they were doing. Was it the small groups? The fun activity? The use of their mobile devices to take photos? Seeing themselves projected on the big screen? • The second major observation – more of an ”aha” was related to the devices the students were using. Most had cells phones, a few had laptops. These students, as a group, are classified as lower income students. None of their devices had the capability to download apps. What this says to me as the educator is that when I am designing activities that use the students own devices in my BYOD classroom, that they cannot include the use of apps. They have camera, email, texting, internet capabilities, but no way to use apps. Interestingly, as I was thinking about this today, a related article was posted on Edutopia Should We Be Concerned About an ”App Gap”? by Audrey Watters.

• Students will be posting their reactions to this activity viaour class Facebook Page this week. These will be added to this post,

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An Experiential, Mobile-Device Driven Communications Exercise This past week in my undergraduate interpersonal communications course, I adapted the Bridge-Itcommunications exercise to incorporate my students’ (most ages 17-20) mobile devices. It combined some of my favorite instructional strategies: • Experiential and Hands-On Learning • Team Building and Problem-Solving Group Initiatives • Using Mobile Devices in Educational Settings Procedures C

First. students were asked to line up in the classroom on a continuum from those who believed they had the best, most effective communication (verbal and listening) skills to those who thought they lacked those skills. They counted off by three’s to form three groups. The top three self-reported communicators were asked to be the communicators, the others were the builders. Next, groups were moved to separate rooms, given the same set of building blocks and their task . . .

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Build a three-dimensional structure using all the pieces provided. All three structures need to be exact in dimension and in color patterns. The communicators can use their cell phones via text and/or voice to communicate with the other groups.

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No time limits were set. When the teams believed they successfully completed the task, they could send pictures of their structures to one another.

Reflections

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After the completion of the activity, reactions and reflections were posted on a Voicethread slide using an image taken during the activity and quickly uploaded to Voicethread.

Comments included: I loved doing this project! It was fun to get to know the class and it was interesting to figure all of this out without being in the same room with one another. We all worked very well together after we figured out what we were doing.

The activity showed we all communicated very well. The best way we were going to build our structure was to communicate by one and to make sure we had everything in place. i learned that communicating with good instructions will make it successful.

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This activity showed how well we can communicate with each other. I learned that we can communicate well if given proper instructions that are detailed and precise.

Follow-Up Next class students will be shown video clips of their participation in the activity. Since the topic is on nonverbal communication, they will be asked to text to Wifittiwhat the nonverbal behaviors they witnessed during each of the clips.

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A Texting Communications Exercise This is part of a continued series of blogs in which I reporting about and describing how I am adapting more tradition team building, communications, and problem-solving to include learnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; own mobile devices. Part 1 This activity is an adaptation of theBack-to-Back Communications Exercise. Students found a partner. One volunteered to give the directions, the other to be the drawer. They exchanged phone numbers and the drawers went to another room. The direction givers were provided with the following drawing and told to text in words (one student asked if he could send a picture) the description of the drawing. The goal was for the drawer to reproduce the drawing to scale. C

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Part 2 Students then met face-to-face to complete the exercise again using a second picture.

Reflection

After the two exercises, a discussion was facilitated that centered around two questions:

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1. Which of the two exercises produced the best results â&#x20AC;&#x201C; where the original and reproduced images best replicated each other?

2. Which of the two exercises did you prefer? For the first question, the results were split with about half saying the texting produced the best results and the other half stating it was the face-to-face directions. Those who selected texting described the ability to read through the directions several times to insure correctness. Those who believed faceto-face produced better results described the use of body gestures to assist with the results. For the second question, all but one student preferred the face-to-face . . . and all but one student is of the texting generation (18-20 years old).

Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Own Mobile Devices and Celly Provide Peer Feedback This is part of my continuing series of blogs where I am reporting how I am integrating studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; own mobile devices into the classroom activities. Using Celly Celly was used for the learning activity that is described later in this blog. Celly creates mini social networks called cells that connect you with people and topics. A cell can contain anybody with a cellphone. We let you define filters based on hashtags, location, time, and user identity. Celly lets you instantly group people and topics into cells. Cells function as chatrooms where people communicate instantly via text-based messaging. Cells can also include messages from the web or other social networks to capture your interests.

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Learn It in 5provides the following tutorial about how to set up and use Celly. Ways to use Celly at school can be found here. Peer Feedback in an Interview Activity Students in my undergraduate course on Interpersonal Relationships were asked to practice their active listening skills. They conducted interviews with each pair of interviewers-interviewees being observed by their classmates. Feedback to the interviewer was provided via Celly. First they were provided with the following information to join the class cell.

The format for texting in their feedback was @interpersonal (cell) ”The Feedback” #(person’s first name).

During the interviews, students texted their observations of the interviewer behaviors to Celly.

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After each interview, the feedback was projected on the whiteboard. This way students could view personal feedback, get ideas of appropriate interview behaviors, and analyze the quality of effective feedback.

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Flipped Classroom Full Picture: An Example Lesson The flipped classroom, as it is currently being described and publicized, is simply recording the didactic content information via videos, having students view these as homework, and then using class time to further discuss these ideas. Harvard Professor Chris Dede stated in his Global Education 2011 keynote in response to a question directed about the flipped classroom . . . I think that the flipped classroom is an interesting idea if you want to do learning that is largely based on presentation. You use presentation outside of the classroom. Then you do your understanding of the presentation and further steps from the presentation inside the classroom. I think it is a step forward. It is still, in my mind, the old person. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still starting with presentational learning and then trying to sprinkle some learningby-doing on top of it. I am interested more in moving beyond the flipped classroom to learning by doing at the center than a kind of the intermediate step that still centers on largely on tacit assimilation.

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As I describe in The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture, I believe, as Chris Dede does, that the problem with the flipped classroom is that the major focus is on the didactic presentation of information, that it is still at the center of the learning experience. The flipped classroom, given that is currently getting so much press, provides an opportunity to change the paradigm of learning, whereby learningâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;by-doing, the experiences along with the understanding and application of those experiences become core to the learning process. The following lesson describes a type of flipped classroom. This lesson did not center around the content media, in this case the Slideshare, but on the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; personal experiences, interactions with other students, and acquisition of tangible life skills. Interpersonal Communications: Listening Skills

Experiential Engagement: The Activity The cycle often begins with an experiential exercise. This is an authentic, often hands-on learning activity that fully engages the student. It is a concrete experience that calls for attention by most, if not all, the senses. They become hooked through personal connection to the experience and desire to create meaning for and about that experience (ala constructivist learning).

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For this lesson, the learners started off with the Lighthouse activity, where in partner teams, the sited person led his or her blindfolded partner through a series of obstacles. The goal of this part of the lesson was to provide an experience that overtly demonstrated the importance of listening â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially when the sense of sight is taken away.

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Conceptual Connections: The What Learners are exposed to and learn concepts touched upon during Experiential Engagement. They explore what the experts have to say about the topic. Information is presented via video lecture, content-rich websites and simulations like PHET and/or online text/readings. In the case of the flipped classroom as it is being currently discussed, this is the time in the learning cycle when the learners view content-rich videos. The videos support the experiential learning rather than being at the center of the learning experience.

In this lesson, the learners were asked to view and review the following slideshare via their own computer terminals. C

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The benefit of this form of personalized viewing is that the learners have control of the media so they can view it at their own pace â&#x20AC;&#x201C; spending more time on the concepts they need to further review or of which have special, personal interest. Use of their own computers also permit them to search for more information about a given topic. Meaning Making: The So What Learners reflect on their understanding of what was discovered during the previous phases. It is a phase of deep reflection on what was experienced during the first phase and what was learned via the experts during the second phase. Learners can articulate and construct their understanding of the content or topic being covered through written blogs or verbal-based audio or video recordings.

For this lesson, the learners made a personal connection with the content as they were asked to identify the 10 listening skills they believed they needed to further develop. This also became a technology-enhanced lesson. Learners made a mind map of their identified 10 skills that included: (1) the skill, (2) normal and current behaviors associated with the skill, and (3) goals and steps for improvement.

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Demonstration and Application: The Now What C

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During this phase, learners get to demonstrate what they learned and apply the material in a way that makes sense to them. This goes beyond reflection and personal understanding in that learners have to create something that is individualized and extends beyond the lesson with applicability to the learners’ everyday lives. This is in line with the highest level of learning within Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Learning – Creating- whereby the learner creates a new product or point of view. In essence, they become the storytellers of their learning (See Narratives in the 21st Century: Narratives in Search of Contexts). A list of technology-enhanced ideas/options for the celebration of learning can be found at: http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/ ←a−technology−enhanced−celebration−of−learning/

Part One C

The learners practiced their active listening skills during class time. Feedback was provided to the listener via their mobile devices using Celly. See the full description at Studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Own Mobile Devices and Celly Provide Peer Feedback.

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Part Two The learners located a professional in their area of study to interview. Their interview questions focused on the communication skills expected of those in that profession. Their homework was driven by real-life experiences going out to speak with a professionals in their communities. Homework was designed to further promote the applicability, transferability, and relevancy of this lesson.

Every Educator Has a Story . . . Just Tell It. This is one of my favorite cartoons ever.

The ”punch” line is that every person on the planet has a story to tell. I also know that every teacher story to tell. C

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Educators are doing amazing things with their learners in spite (i.e., to show spite toward) of the standards-based and accountability-driven movements. I’ve learned about so many exciting learning activities from educators who are publicizing their great projects via Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs. I’ve read about global collaborations, interesting ways technology is being integrated into the classroom, kids making a difference in their communities, and great project-based learning. This is my own call to action for educators to tell their stories of those rich and amazing things they are doing in their classrooms. • Write a blog. • Tweet about it. • Make photo essays and upload to a photo sharing site like Flickr.

• Take some video footage and share it on YouTube, TeacherTube, or Vimeo. • Ask learner to blog about it. • Share on Facebook. • Give virtual presentations at conferences such as Global Education and K12 Online. • Ask local reporters to come to your classroom • Others? (Please add to list.) For example, I am incorporating students’ mobile devices into an undergraduate course on Interpersonal Relationships. I take photos during each class and that day write a blog entry about mobile learning. These entries take about an hour. C

• Facilitating Learner Voice and Presence in the Classroom Using Mobile Devices • An Instructional Activity: Student-Produced Viral Videos • Using Mobile Devices and Technology to Enhance Emotional Intelligence • An Experiential, Mobile-Device Driven Communications Exercise

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• A Texting Communications Exercise K

• Students’ Own Mobile Devices and Celly Provide Peer Feedback I now have a record/reflection about the class. I get to share it with others via Facebook and Twitter. If all educators publicized the accomplishments they had in their classrooms using technology, hands-on activities, global collaborations, project-based learning; then an informal qualitative research project would result. When educators are asked to provide evidence of efficacy to administrators, parents, other educators, funding sources, they could share these success stories. This aggregate would become the collective narrative – story of education of our times in the beginnings of the 21st century.

Win As Much As You Can Mobile Edition Win As Much As You Can is a popular negotiation game based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma problem (Axelrod 2006). In one version players are grouped into four teams and asked to play an X or Y over a series of rounds. The object is to score as many points as possible. If everyone in the group chooses X, then everyone loses points. If all choose Y, everyone scores points. If there is a mixture of X’s and Y’s, those that played X get more points and those that played Y get fewer points. Discussion is not allowed except during three bonus rounds, when players may discuss how they will play the next round.

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Many assumptions are embedded in this deceptively simple and powerful game, developed to illustrate economic principles from game theory. The most obvious is the use of a “game” to introduce many of the fundamental themes and concepts of negotiation theory. These include the tension between creating and claiming value, individual versus joint gain, trust, concessions, attributions, ethics, and multi-round negotiations. The sports or game metaphor and the “game,” with its title

commanding the player to “win as much as you can” reflect the values of self-interest and personal aggrandizement. The title, score-sheet and rules of the game also suggest a “fixed pie,” leading to the assumption that there is no room for integrative bargaining. The game, however, is more complex than that, as players discover that single-minded pursuit of self-interest can backfire, and that a relationship between personal gain and joint welfare exists, particularly when there will be a continuing relationship. The title and rules suggest that conflict may lie ahead [and almost always does result]. Cultural Baggage When You “Win As Much As You Can” Julia Ann Gold Mobile Edition

The mobile edition is appropriate for upper level High School students and college students. In the mobile edition, students form in four subgroups as in the original game. One member from each group becomes the designated voter using his or her mobile device to post his or her team’s response. Votes are made through texting into Celly (a free group texting service) their X or Y vote along with the round number using a hashtag to denote the round. The results of each round are projected to the entire group so they can view all teams’ votes.

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The individual groups make their selections and votes with no communications with the other groups except in three of the rounds. Three different forms of inter-group communications are permitted during rounds 3, 5, and 6 with payoff results increased during those rounds.

â&#x20AC;˘ Round 3: Groups are invited to text to any other group any message of their choice. As such groups are asked to exchange phones numbers prior to the game.

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â&#x20AC;˘ Round 5: During this round, the teams can text message any communications they want to make to the other groups through Celly which

are projected to the entire group.

â&#x20AC;˘ Round 6: Groups can communicate directly with one another.

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. Reflection of Win As Much As You Can occurs through a VoiceThread set up for that purpose, and through group discussion.

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A Technology-Enhanced Lesson on Conflict This lesson was done with undergraduates, ages 18-20. As you can see by the lesson, the driving pedagogical tenets are: • Experiential and authentic learning. • The use of technology to increase student engagement and motivation. • A focus on student-centric learning with the teacher only providing directions as to how to complete the experiential activities. • Students interacting with each other and the content much more than the teacher. C

The Goals:

• Define conflict.

• Describe differences between destructive and constructive approaches to managing conflict.

• Identify and describe win-lose and win-win negotiation strategies. CY

• Identify and use conflict management skills to help manage emotions, information, goals, and problems when attempting to resolve interpersonal differences.

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Define Conflict Students are given the following directions: Write the word conflict in the center of a blank piece of paper and draw a circle around it. Quickly jot down all the words and phrases you associate with the word conflict by arranging them around your circle. Review your list of associations and categorize them as positive, negative, or neutral. Count the total number of positive,

negative, and neutral associations, and calculate the percentages that are positive, negative, and neutral. Did you have more than 90% positive? Did you have more than 90% negative? What do your associations with the word conflict indicate about your views about conflict and your approach to conflict? Following a discussion of the positive and negative aspects, students are asked to complete the following tasks: • Reduce your list to four words. • Find a partner, reduce that list to four words. • Join another partner team – reduce the list to four words. • Go to Visual Thesaurus – http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ get definitions for each of the four words C

• Create a web on the white board that includes your group’s four words and key words associated with those main words.

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Escalating and Deescalating Conflict Situations C

Students are presented with the following scenarios and compose two responses for each, one that would escalate the conflict, and two, another that would deescalate the conflict.

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They are invited to use their own laptops to compose their responses. They find partners, who reads and finds the comments composed by their partner to share with the rest of the class.

Conflict Resolution Techniques C

Through a brief Powerpoint presentation, students are introduced to the following conflict resolution techniques: • Abandoning • Getting Help • Humor

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• Postponing • Compromise • Integrating • Collaborate/Problem-Solve To practice using these strategies, students write a Dear Abby letter that describes a conflict they are currently or have experienced in their lives. These are composed on Primary Pad. Their individual links are emailed to the teacher. These links are shared with the entire class one at a time so the other students can make recommendations for resolving the conflict based on the strategies above.

Win As Much As You Can Negotiation Strategies

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A separate blog post describes this activity â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Win As Much As You Can Mobile Edition

Personal Goal Development – Motivational Posters

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Finally, students make goals for improving their conflict resolution skills by creating a motivational poster using the Big Hub Motivational Posters. These are uploaded to a Google Presentation to create a class aggregate of motivation posters.’

[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”present/embed” query=”id=ddcqbr4n_22gpcf2bht&size=m” width=”555” height=”451” /]

A End-of-Course Student Survey: The Use of Mobile Devices for Class Activities Preface As is true for many of us using educational technology in the classroom, we are experimenting with how technology can enhance the learning experiences of our students. Sometimes we have failures, often times we have successes. Yet, in this age of evidenced-based education, educators, administrators, and other decision-makers are depending on and using the data gleamed from large studies often completed by companies with vested interests, e.g. Gates Foundation, book publishers, and testing companies. Educators can easily conductaction research about the practices they are using in their own classrooms especially given the ease of creating online surveys and data collection methods. Yet, it seems that it is rarely done. C

For example, I introduced Quest Atlantis into my gifted classes a few years ago and asked these 3rd through 5th graders to complete a survey to assess its efficacy from the student perspective. The results I received were rich and informative. The kids offered great feedback, ideas, and suggestions. See Beyond the Game: Quest Atlantis as an Online Learning Experience for Gifted Elementary Students.

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So if educators want to influence what occurs in not only their own classrooms, but in the classrooms of their co-teachers, then they need to invest the time and energy to demonstrate best practices. In a related blog, I discuss Every Educator Has a Story . . . Just Tell It. End-of-Course Survey The Interpersonal Relations course was offered during Fall, 2011. There were 12 students in the course â&#x20AC;&#x201C; five were male, 7 were female; ten of the students were 18 to 20 years old, one was 25 years old, and the oldest student was a female in her 50s. The first section of the survey listed all of the class activities that used the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; cell phones. I blogged about the individual activities. The archive of these blog posts can be found at User-Generated Education tagged with mobile learning.

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Obviously the sample size is small, but I was excited to find that most of the students found most of the activities of some value and that only one student found one of the activities a waste of time. I also asked a series of open ended questions . . . Favorite and Least Favorite Activities? These were all over the map with no general consensus. What was the greatest advantage of using studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mobile phones to get to know one another and build a sense of community in the class? The responses centered around being able to use the devices they used outside of the class, It was something that we use everyday so it related back to us. It was something they were familar with. The students use their phones on a regular basis. . . . and that their devices helped to create an environment of sharing, friendliness

It provided us with a common ground on which to get to know each other. We got to talk to each other outside of class, not just when we were in class. We were able to communicate outside of class and create friendships. You got to know the people better though them. To get a better experience from the class and enjoy coming to class. What was the biggest problems in using students’ mobile devices during class time?

As was expected, most of the student responses centered around them being a distraction. People would abuse it and text friends and do other things that the activity wasn’t for.

The students were tempted to use the phones for personal use.

Sometimes people weren’t always doing what they were supposed to be doing.

Students had more of a chance to get distracted.

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Some people texted when they should have been participating. (Note: I had to implement a device away strategy, when I had to ask students, often several times, to put their devices away when we weren’t using them for class activities.) A few mentioned service problems. Some didn’t work. The service was bad because i would send a text and it would show up ten minuets later.

What recommendations would you make to improve the use of studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mobile devices for class activities and community-building? Most of the students stated, â&#x20AC;?None.â&#x20AC;? There are none everything is A Okay. Interestingly, two mentioned having laptops available for all students. Change the moblie devices into personal laptops provided by the school. Have computers for each student. Next week, I begin this course again with a new group of students. I will continue to test out the mobile learning activities and get student feedback about them. C

Thanks Fall, 2011, students!

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