Journal 4

Liz Kolb tackled a tough issue in her article, "From Toys to Tools". She discusses how students can use their own personal cell phones as a tool to communicate with the blogging world. Hats off to her for thinking about this topic and then fully exploring it. I especially appreciate her line that states, "I think something so integral to our students' lives outside of school deserves some consideration". That's true with everything, especially cell phones. She's really saying, hey, instead of banning them right off the bat, lets look at why they're so widely used. Not only did she give the great notion that students could use cell phones as instant recorders and then post them to their personal blogs, but she also gave the pro's and con's to the thought as well. For instance, she stated that blogger.com does not require passwords to view, but that another blogging site did. I thought that she covered her basis well!
QUESTIONS:
1. How else could I incorporate cell phones as a tool for the classroom?
I did love the idea of the blogging, but there are other ideas that I have. For instance, most cell phones come with camera's now, so maybe doing some type of treasure hunt where students have to take pictures and upload them to their computers. Pretend we take a field trip to the zoo and they have to find 3 exotic snakes, or 4 different families of monkeys. The students might even be able to send the pictures directly to me and skip the uploading.
2. How do I make it mandatory for those who can't afford cell phones?
I currently work for a domestic violence and rape crisis center and we have a "cell phone drop off" where people can donate their old cell phones. Maybe the school could set up a drop off site. That way, we could also program the phones for school use, and not have different service providers. Also, companies are often willing to collaborate with schools on ideas like this. Maybe they would donate old phones.