News and Trends

5 Ways to Expand Smartphone Learning

6/28/2012 By:

As I have been reading about the use of smartphones in classes, I have some concerns.

1 Why limit mobile learning to lower-level drill and kill activities? Don’t just use a Spanish app to study vocabulary. Add a QR code to show the students a restaurant in Lima, Peru.

2 Why limit mobile learning to text-based learning? Use a QR code to go to a Web page and watch a Kahn video instead of reading about the math.

3 Why limit smartphones to individual activities? Instead of Johnny sitting alone to learn about a country, have Johnny and Rosa contrast different pictures of the same country.

4 Why limit mobile learning to one small view? Use a mobile learning device to find a poem about love, then create QR posters that show how “love” shows up in songs or movies.

5 Why not use smartphones to help students analyze their learning? As students do various speaking tasks, they record their scores in a Google document spreadsheet. They can see how well they are progressing at any time.