Nowadays, due to the fact that technology is part of students' everyday life, it is expected they carry cell phones to school and use them during lessons.
How could teachers profit from this situation in the classroom?
Nicky Hockly, an educator in EFL teaching and teacher training since 1987, and the Director of Pedagogy of an online training and development organisation called The Consultants-E www.emoderationskills.com helped us to think about this question in her speech about Going Mobile delivered last October 28th.
 |
Nicky Hockly at "Going Mobile" speech.
Photo taken by Julieta Grassino Oliva.
|
Firstly, she conceptualized Mobile Learning saying it is “learning that takes place via portable, often Wi-Fi enabled, handheld devices” (Hockly, 2015) such as cell phones and laptops.
 |
| Nicky Hockly at "Going Mobile" speech. Photo taken by Julieta Grassino Oliva. |
Secondly, she showed us different ways of introducing the use of cell phones into our lessons. She presented activities learners can do either to consume content or to produce it. The former, includes listening to podcasts or using flashcards for or to review vocabulary. The latter, refers to activities like audio recording themselves doing class tasks or taking photos following on certain topic.
If you are interested in including technology into your teaching we invite you to read Mobile Learning: what is it and why should you care? by Nicky Hockly
This will surely be interesting and useful to help you make your own decisions.
We hope it helps you to start dealing creatively with technology in your lessons!
