Journal #4

“Toy to Tool: Audioblogging with Cell Phones”
By: Liz Kolb

This article discusses how cell phones can be a learning tool instead of a toy or interference to the learning environment. Cell phones are considered a bad thing to most educators. Teachers feel that cell phones could be used to cheat on tests or to use during class time to interrupt the class. Liz Kolb felt that way until she looked at how important communication is for students and how they use cell phones to interact with the world around them. According to Kolb “with the new audio input feature of many Weblog sites such as blogger.com and blogzy.com, students can use their cell phones to create blogs, collect and store data, and develop multimedia projects.”
Audioblogging can be used all the time and can be a fun way to learn. Kolb discusses how this can be done and what an Audioblog actually is. She says that cell phones can be used as a portable interviewing device instead of using a microphone or recorder. This can be used for many activities inside and outside of the classroom. The students can save all of their information and recording on their blog. Sites such as blogger.com are great for having students create a blog. They can put videos and other resources on there.

Questions:
Q: Should students be allowed to bring cell phones to class all of the time?
A: I think students should bring their phones only when they are being used for an assignment. Kolb states that there should be boundaries for this. Students should only bring phone when teacher says to.

Q: What grade level should these ideas be used for?
A: I think that Audioblogging would be for 4th or 5th graders and possible not until middle school. This will take a lot of boundaries and skills with technology and older students will have an easier time with this.