Mobile Phones Wiki

Week two was a bit similar to last week, expect we were required brainstorm about what we thought about mobile phones.

Mobile phones are a great teaching tool as there are many different applications that can be used to teach children the basics of spelling, reading, writing and learning of math. However, they can become a distracting possession as children could play games, text one another or anything that may draw their focus from the learning topic. Also, not every child can afford a fancy mobile phone that allows them to go on the internet or download applications for their learning, which people need to realise this before introducing them into the classroom. Therefore, I have come to conclude that mobile phones would be useful in the classroom as long as the proper cautions are taken to make sure that they are being used for education purposes only and that each child has one.

We also were required to look at different points of view by using the 'Six Thinking Hats' . Each hat has a different way of thinking about the subjects:

1.  White Hat - facts and details.
2.  Black Hat - examines problems.
3.  Yellow  Hat - focuses on the positvies.
4.  Red Hat - emotions and feelings toward a topic.
5.  Green Hat - requires creativeness, imagination and lateral thinking.
6.  Blue Hat - reflection, metacognition and understanding.

In my reflection, I decided to do the White Hat and the Yellow Hat as I wanted to use a change of thinking. I found this task quite easy as the questions helped me to think about mobile phones in different ways. How I reflected to this task was:

• (White Hat) Mobile phones have a wide range of uses which can include being used in a classroom if used in the right manner. There are numerous different applications that can be used to teach children everyday basics, such as grammar, spelling, punctuation and even maths. Children can become distracted with mobile phones, going off track of what the class is actually learning. What is needed to be found out is whether mobile phones are a constructive way of teaching in the classroom and how do we know what year levels would be most beneficial to this type of technology?
• (Yellow Hat) Mobile phones have a wide range applications that can be used for the teaching children the basics of english and mathematics. This can be successful as children are eger to learn about technology and find it more interesting than looking at white dust being written on a black board. Technology of these advances is a good thing because children are more willing to learn.

The Thinking Hat scaffold that we contributed to was an excellent example of thinking about different points on the issue. In a classroom, this would be useful in the teaching of children to discover the different way of thinking by putting on one hat at a time. I will certainly be using this technique myself in the future as I find it a brilliant scaffold.