Using Mobile Technologies for Education

There was some discussion of using mobile technologies (cell phones, iPods, Blackberries, etc.) at TESOL Denver this year, but the following is the most succinct list I have seen:

Forwarding an edited mail from the Wikieducator list (Randy Fischer)

Randy found this 2008 University of Nottingham study on Mobile Phones
and secondary education, and thought it might be of interest.
http://emergingtech nologies. becta.org. uk/upload- dir/downloads/ page_documents/ research/ lsri_report. pdf

Several interesting things caught his eye:

1. the fact that in many schools, students 'own' their mobile phones,
not necessarily the computers. (Physical ownership and use feels
good);

2. the list of 15 Useful Things Students Do with Mobile Phones (below)

Could we use some of the 15 or more useful things to design
appropriate and culturallly- relevant learning activities?

What role could WikiEducator play in learning that uses mobile phones?

Fifteen useful things students did with mobile phones
1 Timing experiments with stopwatch
2 Photographing apparatus and results of experiments for reports
3 Photographing development of design models for eportfolios
4 Photographing texts/whiteboards for future review
5 Bluetoothing project material between group members
6 Receiving SMS & email reminders from teachers
7 Synchronising calendar/timetable and setting reminders
8 Connecting remotely to school learning platform
9 Recording a teacher reading a poem for revision
10 Accessing revision sites on the Internet
11 Creating short narrative movies
12 Downloading and listening to foreign language podcasts
13 Logging into the school email system
14 Using GPS to identify locations
15 Transferring files between school and home

--Thanks to Bee Dieu on the Webheads' list for this report