Mobile Learning Lab

1.  Join Classroom 2.0.  This looks like a fantastic resource!  It is a well organized site and I look forward to learning from all the users.

2. Create a Poll.  I polled a few friends about Halloween.  I work with elementary students, so I could not poll my students.  However, I have two kids in middle school and they loved answering my questions with their cell phones.  They thought it was so neat to see the instant feed back!

3. Mobile Technology Exploration.  I work with elementary students, so I can't utilize the cellular network.  Some 5th graders start to get phones in my district, but are very limited on how and when they can use them by their parents.  In middle school not all students have fully functioning cell phones, so I could see how it would be hard to use these tools any earlier than with high school students.  

My elementary school has iTouch cases, all teachers have a classroom iPad and we have 4 carts of computer laptops.  (COWs - computers on wheels).  I have used the iPads to share ebooks, listen to podcasts, skype with other classes, and research.  I like to test the apps on my kids who are 4, 7, 12 & 13 years in age.  It allows me to determine the educational value before I introduce it to my students.  We really enjoy the flexibility that the mobile technology allows our teachers and students to have.  Our only challenges come from our districts network infrastructure.  Density of devices is a big challenge for districts.  Bandwith is also something our district needs to continually evaluate and grow.  As we push for the "bring your own device" solution, we need to be able to support massive increase of network traffic.