From Toy to Tool by Liz Kolbformer high school social studies teacher

I think something so integral to our students lives outside of school deserves some
consideration for potential inside the classroom.

Students can use their cell phones to create blogs, collect and store data, and
develop multimedia projects.

Audioblog is similar to a podcast-=--a voice message from phone that immediately

posts to a blog site. They can be posted from anywhere and anytime using a cell
phone.

Audioblogging with a cell phone creates opportunities for student to conduct

interview activities (inside or outside of school). Instead of lugging microphones,
tape recorders, tapes and digital recorders to interviews.

Most students already have a cell phone.

Local Author Project

Students could interview local authors.
They can dial in Gabcast or blogzy.com (set up takes approximately 15 minutesset
up blooger.com account and then set up Gabcast account), set their cell phone
down and ask their questions. Once they are finished, they just hit one button and
the interview is immediately posted to a blog. Since the phone has a camera, video
recorder, pictures or video can be taken and added as well---all from one device.
Furthermore, there is no storage of materials necessary, no tapes to go bad or
accidentally be erased---it is all stored online. One posted, student can download
the material for creating a digital story using programs like Photostory 3. Or they
can develop their blog around the interview clips.

The same applies for social studies where students could interview veterans, civil
rights activist an local community leaders.

In the science classroom, students can collect sounds form a trip to the zoo or just a
tirp outside.
They can interview each other, create radio broadcasts or their own books on tape
with sound effects, recite poetry, explain how they rationalize a difficult
mathematical problem, brainstorm ideas, work on verbal language presentations
and communication skills, complete class reflections or journal scientific
observations.

The Constitution by Cell by Stephanie Greenhut and Megan Jones

90 seventh grade students in U.S. history classes on trip to National Archives
Experience in Washington, D. C.
Tasks
1. Analyze document on display in the Public Vaults at eh exhibit
2. 2. Determine how the documents illustrated the
Constitution in action
3. Synthesize what they discovered into a digital story for an audience using
their cell phone and web tools
Roll of teachers:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Introduce students to Constitution

Dived class in to small teams
Assign each team a section of the constitution to focus on
Set up accounts on Gabster (phonecasting, gcast, voicethread, etc) or other
such program that allowed student to podcast from phone to web.
5. Remind students to bring phones
The podcasting software was taught to the students.
Students worked with their teams to record and take pictures while at the archives.
One group found a letter from a child to President Ford about his pardon of Nixon.
The group used this in their digital story to discuss the presidents power to issue
pardons included in Article 2 of the Constitution.
Student work diligently, independently. The instructors noted the integration of
museum exploration with higher-order thinking skills such as synthesis and
evaluation that together made the activity an engaging investigation.

Their final digital stories demonstrated their personal experience with the archives
as well as their deepened understanding of the constitution.

The possibilities for an activity structured in this way are limitless. It combines
critical and historical thinking skills with their own sense of exploration. The activity
was engaging and authentic.