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Cell Phones in the Classroom, New Wikipedia Guidelines, Steam Car Redux, and Artificial Trees

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gregRight, “no more whining.” The message was received loud and clear from many quarters last week. Sorry about that, and let’s get on with a great show for a fantastic crew of listeners. That was evidenced by the email I received from Dr. Haidar Samiei, who wrote in to say that the people he’s heard interviewed on WTP have been an inspiration to him. He and a friend have developed a medical app for the iPhone — check it out here.

Listener Derek Bruff put me onto our lead story this week: Greg Kulowiec, who is pictured here. Greg is a high school history teacher at Plymouth South High School in Plymouth, MA. He’s also a blogger, and a big fan of using all sorts of technologies as teaching tools in his classroom. It’s part of on-going attempt to talk to tech folks who have, as one listener put it, “dirt under their finger nails.” Greg mentioned a couple of different videos he’s created about his different tech and teaching projects. Here’s a demo video of him using Poll Everywhere. And here’s the Animoto video Greg created using cell phones and Evernote.

Next, we turn to a bit darker side of cell phones. The World’s Jeb Sharp, who creates an amazing weekly history podcast called “How We Got Here,” tells us about the role that conflict minerals (including a few that make your cell phone your cell phone) are playing in the violence in Congo.

And, do you remember last week’s segment on the British engineering team that was trying to break the record for the fastest steam-powered vehicle ever? Well, they did it. We’ll have an update and reaction from the team. We’ll also have an interview with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. At a Wikipedia conference in Buenos Aires this week, there were some interesting decisions made about how pages about subjects that are still alive will be edited. Here’s a BBC link to the story.

artificialtreesAnd we end with a story about, well, artificial trees. The Brits want to use the flyswatter shaped “trees” as a way of controlling carbon emissions. You can read more about that here.

Here’s a link to the World Science Podcast, which I am also responsible for ruining this week ;)

Just remember that you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

Discussion

17 comments for “Cell Phones in the Classroom, New Wikipedia Guidelines, Steam Car Redux, and Artificial Trees”

  • http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs Derek Bruff

    Glad to hear the interview with Greg Kulowiec! So many students (in K-12 and college) have cell phones these days, it makes sense to find ways to leverage that technology. I’ve got a few thoughts about potential classroom uses of mobile devices over on my blog.

    Also, I think it’s great that you tagged this post with “artificial trees.” Don’t see that every day…

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      Derek —

      Thanks to you for suggesting the chat with Greg!

      Clark

  • Clark Petrie

    Terrific podcast this week– I’m happy to have come across The World Technology (it’s been about a month and I’m hooked – I look forward to it every week).

    Love this week’s new motto and, by the way, classy first name.

    Cheers,

    Clark P.

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      Clark —

      Yes, it IS a classy first name! Thanks for listening. Spread the word!

      Clark

  • http://www.2020nexus.orf Suzanne Shanks

    I am a middle school technology teacher and all-around geek. I’m known among my friends and co-workers as the tech evangelist (uttered with both reverance and disgust, depending whom you ask). LOL

    I love the show. It was great to hear about cell phones in the classroom. I use them, including Poll Everywhere, in my Digital Technologies electives classes. We also use them to take pictures and videos of Science lessons like dissections. We’ve used them to study how a cell phone disrupts the magnetic field of a compaass and of course, the calendaring/reminder functions to keep track of due dates. I had to get special permission from my principal to “violate” current policies in a pilot project last year but now the front office is asking when they can come and participate in a cell-enhanced lesson. (Just for your information–about half of our staff hates me for it, 25% are ambivalent, and 25% are very interested. I suspect our group is representative of other schools across the country.)

    I never understood the point of Evernote but thanks to Greg’s interview I get it. Thank you.

    It’s a shame that this year a lot more of my 11-14-year-old students either aren’t allowed or can’t afford a cell phone. There are ways to involve those students in phone-enhanced lessons but it is not easy. So the barriers are two-fold: as you know, too many educators are afraid of harnessing the love teens have for them. Also, you can’t assume all kids have mobile devices.

    Anyway, if you really want to know about cell phones in classrooms, you should visit the From Toy To Tools web site (and book) at http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/. Liz Kolb, the author, is presently the expert in the field and she’s great. Maybe a follow-up podcast?

    Keep on podcasting, please. Yours is one of my favorites — and I listen to about 30 a week.

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      Suzanne —

      Thanks for writing in, and thanks for providing that link! Sounds like it might make a GREAT follow-up.

      Clark

  • Dick Ross

    I have been listening to your podcast almost from the beginning. Retired 3 months ago and now I listen while I work out each morning.
    I am going to do all that I can to spread the news about how Greg is using technology with his students.
    I think he needs to get his ideas into the heads of as many teachers as possible.
    Also thanks for the lead to Evernote.

    Dick

    PS. It does matter how many listen; otherwise someone there will pull the plug. So let’s build up the listeners with more positive stories like this one.

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      Dick —

      Thanks for writing in, and thanks for listening! Keep spreading the word.

      Clark

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  • Scott Williams

    To bring together those first two stories, I teach at a community college in Texas, and I am currently using wikis in the classroom. I have students in both my online and face-to-face classes work on creating a term-definition wiki. They are given a list at the beginning of the semester of about 175 terms, and the class as a whole has to work on the terms using a wiki module in our course management system (Moodle).

    It gets mixed reviews from the students, as it is an unfamiliar concept to many of them. Others find it to be a lot of work, especially when they keep putting off working on it until the end. However, from my end, it provides both a level of collaboration hard to achieve in other places and a good knowledge check on what they have been learning this semester.

    • http://www.theworld.org Clark Boyd

      Scott —

      Thanks for writing in, and thanks for listening to the podcast!

  • Matt

    Just finally got time to listen to this podcast. I’m really glad you took the time to detail what evernote is about. It looks like a great resource for me.

    One note on the artificial tree story. It was mentioned that one artificial tree cleans as much CO2 out of the air as 1000 real trees. What was only mentioned in passing is that the artificial trees create a carbon byproduct that must then be stored. It would be interesting to follow up on this and see exactly what form this byproduct takes, how much of it is produced and how it is stored.

    Thanks for the great stories!

    Matt

  • http://www.nursing.ubc.ca/Faculty/biopage.aspx?c=74.3303437365925 Bernie Garrett

    No more whining indeed! I love this show! I am a UK ex-pat and now live in Vancouver, BC, Canada where I am a prof working in the field of educational technology and healthcare applications. I listen to the show driving home every week and Many of the stories have helped me in projects I am working on. The range and coverage of the podcast is first rate. This is unique and long may it continue!
    Cheers
    Bernie

  • Barbara

    Love the podcast, especially this one. BTW – by the way……whinging is ok….needs to be done from time to time…very therapeutic.
    So remember whinging is good from time to time.
    Another BTW wouldn’t it be interesting to see stats on who – age, profession etc and where – live/work your listeners are.
    Barbara

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