Assignments On Phones

I keep warning my middle school eighth grades students that one day they’ll groan at the teacher about assignments given on their phones. I predicted it would happen to them in high school, but they had their doubts. Seems this may be closer than they realize:

Teachers begin using cell phones for class lessons — AP: Yahoo! Tech

The students in the article are like mine — they love their phones. My students think they would love to use them at school. They don’t realize that they’d have to learn to use them in a way that helps them learn. Adults have had to learn (or still have to learn) how to use the technology in a way that doesn’t cause problems. It was interesting to watch this learning happen as I went through college and grad school.

Eventually, students won’t crave the use of their phones in class, but I am excited about the thought of the first time I’m allowed by my district to start including such common technology in the classroom.

Update 24 June 2010: My district has added portable electronics to the list of things I can “request approval” of for a lesson. I just have to design a lesson and fill out the form, and then the Director of Instruction for my building signs off on it. Now I have two choices: quickly include it in a lesson as a gimmick, or spend some real time thinking about the most authentic and effective use of personal tech to enhance lessons I teach.

How to Bookmark to Delicious.com on the iPhone

If you’re a Delicious user, you probably use a Delicious Bookmarklet in your browser of choice to bookmark a page you are currently viewing. On the iPhone you can’t (yet) easily do this, because you can’t bookmark the JavaScript needed create the bookmarklet from within Safari on the iPhone.

(If you use Safari on OS X, you can drag and drop the bookmarklet to the bookmarks toolbar and it will sync to your iPhone).

With the simple steps below, you can create the bookmarklet by and once, and then use it to bookmark as many web pages as you want to Delicious. Continue reading “How to Bookmark to Delicious.com on the iPhone”