Tag: mobile technologies

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iPhone perils

I posted a little while back about the iPhone and the love affair I’m having with it. That love affair continues, but not without a slight bitter aftertaste at the moment. Last week, the iPhone and I engaged in some heavy duty handling while I was in Sydney, and now I’m faced with, horror of horrors, restriction of service due to exceeding my credit cap.

(‘Colors’, by incase designs. Accessed from Flickr.)

I feel a bit stupid really. You hear about kids who get a phone and run up exhorbitant bills and here I am, a seemingly responsible adult, doing just that!

So, the upshot of all this is that I’ll be reviewing my plan and upgrading so that I can continue to check email, update Twitter, browse webpages, download and use apps, and maybe, just maybe, find some time to call a friend or two on the phone. It really is an amazing device. Take a look at Josh Catone’s post, ‘Back to School: Top 10 iPhone Apps for Students’. Some great Apps are featured and I think you’ll see why we should be embracing these devices and allowing use of them in classrooms. My son and daughter received iTouch’s for Christmas; to my way of thinking, they should be permitted to access school networks and use these devices in school for educational purposes. Now, just need to convince them to download a few of these Apps rather than Bubblewrap or Papertoss!

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Loving my iPhone : )

I’m on camp at the moment and the iPhone has come into its own for me. I’ve only had it for a week and a half, but already I am viewing mobile technologies and their relevance for education in a whole new light.

The phone has become my digital camera for camp happy snaps. I can upload the pictures easily to my computer for the blog I am writing for the parents. It’s even taken video of my daughter’s efforts on the giant swing. It’s my instant weather update. In the heat we are experiencing I am able to check the CFA updates to see if fire conditions might be an issue for us. I can stay connected to school and my online network through the access I have to email and twitter. If I wanted to, I could read Macbeth or A Christmas Carol (or any other out of copyright book!)  through the Stanza application. I can access the iPod within it and listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In the tent my Just Light application is acting as a torch so I can locate what I need in the dark. The Google Maps application assisted us on the first day when our bus driver got lost and we couldn’t find the camp location. Google got us there!

Why on earth wouldn’t any student who has one of these powerful tools in their pocket not be using it in classrooms today? Why would any school ban them from access to information they can use for the course they are studying? My iPhone has been configured to my school’s network so that it will tap into it when I’m there. My thinking is that we should be doing the same for the students. Rather than ban, let’s embrace and support them in using these tools to their maximum potential. I know that I have only tapped the surface of what it can do. Can’t wait to see what more I can learn.