Cell phone trial in school

Pinelands High SchoolNicole MasureikTwitter: nimming

Image CC licenced for reuse by JonJon2kB from Flickr

Why cell phones?

• Insufficient access to computer labs• Most kids have one• Can provide 1-on-1 programmes• Cheaper than ipads• Wanted to know whether they could be used

efficiently as a learning tool

Safety and school policy??• Phones handed in at reception before school• Special tags – all in one box• Box collected/ returned by teacher• Parental permission forms• AUPs• Video release forms• Blog is closed to public• Twitter names designed to be non-identifiable

• Outside of these lessons, normal sanctions apply if caught with a phone

How did we choose the classes?

• Two Gd 11 classes (one maths, one LS) • Large overlap between pupils in classes• Top academics in the school

What are we doing?

• Twitter backchannel for questions, h/w, activities (different hash tags for each class)

• Blogging summaries/ solutions/ discussions• Voice recordings• Video recordings• Photo-documenting the lesson• Evernote for note-taking

What have we noticed?• Increased energy in lesson• Greater participation in lesson• Greater collaboration in lesson• More questions being asked• Questions are broader/ wider/ deeper• Lesson format shifting from mainly content

delivery to teaching critical thinking skills• “Flipped” classroom experience

High points?

• Interactive lesson from home using Twitter & blogs by sick teacher

• Creating video summaries of lesson BY pupils FOR pupils

• Having a backchannel for questions!• Pupils have access to teacher after school

hours to ask questions (don’t have to wait till next lesson)

Techniques we’ve implemented

• 2nd projector and laptop for Tweetboard• Twitter host in every lesson• Summariser for every lesson• Twitter apps to analyse tweets e.g. Archivist

Results so far?

• Stats are always misleading…– Small sample size– Short time period of trial

However, LS class appears to have a 4% higher result with phones.

Is that statistically significant? Yes.