Like Alice, I believe mLearning is here to stay and grow. I have first-hand experiences as an educator with the drawbacks of Mlearning. Students are easily distracted on their mobile devices as well as on their personal tablets or laptops. This type of learning is also completely contingent on connectivity, which will be less of a concern with 5G. There are so many Mlearning products to chose from that it can become overwhelming for consumers (parents, educators, teachers). Ed-technology platforms that filter a "best of selection" of Mlearning products by theme or subject could be a very helpful service that I hope to develop someday with a team. Perhaps there are some MET students looking to embark upon this project with me!
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Hi All,
May I jump in...pre-COVID we had such a hard time with phones in the classroom; and we are teaching adults! We had so many teachers who would either take everyone's phone away, make the students leave them at the front of the class, keep them in their bag etc... However, now its a whole set of rules. I think you are correct Alice, having the phone and using it occasionally or in small chunks works better than having a blanket "no".
I don't mind you jumping in at all, Johannes! And thank you for your comments and sharing your experiences. The teacher who took phones away had a student actually start crying when he asked for her phone. It turned out she couldn't disconnect from social media at all. I think she in the end learned to manage, but I don't know what to think about that.
But you're right, the teacher taking the phone away - the 'binary' response - will probably be harder to do over time. I'm hoping it'll be like dieting - we struggle when you're told we're not allowed to do something as opposed to giving ourselves permission to do what we need to do without going overboard. A couple of scoops of ice-cream vs. the whole lot. But at least you can have some.
Hi, Sundeep and Tara,
I'm also curious as to how classroom management will look like when every student is allowed to usea phone or other mobile device in class? I know a teacher who - pre-covid - collected all phones and kept them in a box until the class was over. I don't see this as a reality anymore, incredibly. How do you see this playing out in the new normal?
Hi Tara, Thanks for your comments. I agree, students really do become distracted and filtering out good mLearning products can be a challenging task for the educator. I think it also depends on what the educator wants to showcase and the classroom environment. I love your idea of filtering for a specific type of mLearning app based on certain specific criteria.
I'm actually interested in that, if you do want to discuss this further, I would totally be up for it.