I have to start this blog post by saying that none of the ideas I am about to share are my own. I completely stole them from a great session I attended at the ASCD Critical Transformations Conference. They all came from session 1338 Using Mobile Technologies as Teaching Tools. 

Far too many schools are afraid of cell phones--and react by putting unreasonable restrictions on their use in school settings. Student cell phones are here to stay. I'll even admit that my most common form of communication with my own 8 and 10 year olds is through text messages--sometimes even during the school day. Think about whether your own policies, practices, and procedures are reasonable. Most important, in my mind, is that they have some clause that gives teachers the flexibility to choose to allow students to use cell phones in class--because there are some cool, instructionally sound ways to use student cell phones in class, and I have to believe these practices increase student engagement.

I want to use this post as opportunity to share four great ideas I got from this session--one from a fellow session participant, and three from the presenters.

1). You know we all struggle with how to address "sneaky" student use of cell phones in class? Though on some level I do marvel at the talent it takes to send and receive text messages while a phone is discreetly stowed in the pocket of a baggy sweatshirt, I have to admit that it caused me a fair amount of management angst in my own classroom. I've heard of teachers who have every student park their cell phones on the top of their desks (while turned off) to address these issues, but I heard an even better idea from someone sitting at my table. She purchased a clear, over-the-door shoe organizer for her classroom wall. She has each of her students deposit their cell phones into one of the compartments at the beginning of class and retrieve them on their way out the door at the end of class. At my school--and at hers--students are allowed to use their phones between classes.

2). Wiffiti http://wiffiti.com/ is a website that allows users to post real-time messages. Students can send messages (text and picture) via SMS or MMS message or the web. I can think if many uses for this in a classroom--from bell-ringers to quick polling that could serve as an informal formative assessment. Check it out if you're not familiar with it.

3). Poll Everywhere http://www.polleverywhere.com/ allows for live audience polling. You can ask a question and get responses using SMS text messages, Twitter, or the web. You can see real-time responses with a web browser or in a Power Point. It's a great solution for people who like audience response systems--we call ours "clickers"--but may not have the devices available to them.

4). Flickr http://www.flickr.com/ allows you to create an account and give students an address that they can send picture messages to from their cell phones. I can imagine sending a group of students out in the building to find and capture pictures of a certain type of angle--or anything really. This builds a database of real-life examples (and probably a few non-examples) the class can use to develop representations of concepts.

Again--none of these are original ideas, but I thought they were certainly worth sharing.