Our Digital Citizens Get an Identity Card!

Today we are going to create our personal avatars in Edmodo, an amazing, secure on line space that is used by schools worldwide to collaborate and share in a safe, protected environment.

m- learning

Have you ever heard of the term m-learning? What do you think it means?                                                    See if these pictures can help you.

Today’s mobile devices are tomorrow’s textbooks Once cellphones were viewed as a distraction — banned from many classrooms. Now they’re a teaching tool!

When 16-year-old Amanda Schuman needs help translating English to Spanish, she pulls out her iPhone.

Amanda, a junior at Vista Murrieta High School in southwest Riverside County, uses the phone to check her grades, look up homework assignments and find dictionary definitions. During a recent science lab on tissue types, a quick Internet search confirmed her findings.

Using her phone is easier than reaching for a textbook or waiting for a teacher to answer a question, Amanda said.

A few years ago, students like Amanda faced punishment for pulling out cellphones or other mobile technology in class. Today, more teachers see the devices not as distractions but as tools to help students learn. And experts say the future of education may revolve around these hand-held instruments.

“Kids today have never been without computers or social networking,” said Greg Nicholas, a science teacher at Vista Murrieta High School.

He embraces technology because he knows today’s students live in that world. Using the tools students are most comfortable with keeps them interested in class, he said.

“At least at the high school level, we need to allow them to use the technology they have,” he said. “If you don’t, it’s almost like tying their hands.”

Inland schools are rapidly adding mobile devices such as iPod Touches and iPads to classrooms. Every student at Ramona High School in Riverside was issued a 7-inch Coby android tablet this year that includes the student’s textbooks, dictionaries, calculators and applications to help with homework.

Kindergarten students at Donald Graham Elementary School in Wildomar use iPod Touch devices to help with reading, math and spelling. In one application, a child will see a picture of a cat with letters T, A and C below. When they unscramble the letters and correctly spell “cat,” the animated cat meows and dances around.

“The clear vision of the future is every student with a connected device of some kind,” said Don Knezek, chief executive officer of the International Society of Technology in Education. “The devices get smaller, have multiple features and are carried around in pockets.”

Now write a comment of about 100 words on how m-learning is used in your school. In your view what other uses of technology should be included in teaching in your class?
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