New ways of using existing pieces of technology so that many uses come together are the biggest ideas that I gained from reading this entry. I am wondering if there is anything from this that my district would consider. In trying to think about how would students use either a phone or iPod device, I am wondering if will take a restructuring of the school day before a phone could really be useful in the same way it is for an adult.
Sure students can get information ala their phone..assignments, a calendar function and so on, but is it really more efficient. I don't know. But it would be a terrific thing to run as an action research project. I guess I say this because I would like to know at what grade levels there become diminishing returns and more negative unintended consequences than positives benefits. I may sound like a naysayer, but I'm not always a jump on the bandwagon when it comes to technology.
iPods as utility device is interesting. Certainly students would love to have it available and 60 G is huge. But I would have to talk to folks to understand if it would be less expensive to buy and maintain than network storage. Accessing it from school can't be easier but it is more portable and students would have the availability from home which they don't have now....but is it easier to figure a way to give kids access through the firewall than to do something like this????? I don't know.
I know one thing, for sure. My students are sick of finding abstracts. They simply won't tolerate it and the author is right-on when she says that the expect to find full journal articles. Some how this generation of students expects that if they "search" they will "find" the whole thing. Right there, right then.
Whether or not any of these ideas work or not, it's really irrelevant. It's just the thinking about them that's important to me. It's trying to move forward and considering the possibilities that is what counts.