Hello Eunice and others,

On Apr 24, 2007, at 11:23 AM, Eunice Snay wrote:


> David:  Do you know how the phone cost involved are paid?  Does it  

> come out of the individuals plan?  Does the program support the  

> student use of this technology in any way?   This seems to me to be  

> the stumbling block for use.


In some cases teachers inventory what mobile phones students have,  
and design instruction around them.  In other cases, for example in  
some of the examples I listed, there are special projects that  
provide web-accessible mobile phones or pda's.


>  Does IPod fall under this category?  Especially the Video IPod  

> that has similar functionality.


Ipods offer great opportunities for watching learning videos. Some  
producers of adult education instructional videos are considering --  
or acting on -- putting their instruction in formats that are  
accessible by ipods and web-accessible pda's.


>  This whole group of technologies fall under what I consider "what  

> do student already have and use".  So the student's doesn't need to  

> learn the technology again, their already using it.   Why not make  

> use of what they have for education.


That's one way to look at it.  Another way is to make web-accessible  
pda's available to students on loan for special projects.


>  I think teachers are in the same category, in that they use these  

> technologies themselves and it's a technology they don't need to  

> learn to use again.


Perhaps -- but not all teachers know how to fully use the capacity of  
mobile phones or web-accessible pda's (what I would like to think of  
as PLAs -- personal learning assistants)


>   But we need idea's like these for the teachers to think broadly  

> for uses in their classes.  I recently was asked by a teacher that  

> I met on the street, "How do I text Message".  She had the need at  

> that moment, it turned into a real learning opportunity.


Yes, that's my point.  Just because someone _has_ a mobile phone  
doesn't mean they know how to use it to its full capacity.  Sometimes  
people have Web access and don't know it, for example. From a Web- 
accessible mobile phone, someone could look up words in a dictionary,  
look up information from articles in the Wikipedia, and get  
directions, news and other practical information.  But these are new  
"literacies" to know how to access this information, how to scroll a  
web page from a handheld, how to send a text message.


>  I like the example you used below especially because it's for the  

> low level learner.   Teachers tend to discount using technologies  

> with this group of students.  Though just the opposite should be  

> thought of for this population becasue technologies can assist them  

> with their learning.


Good observation.


David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net