Educational uses of the camera phone.

I read a post on the CogDogBlog about Qipit.He discussed the use of the mobile phone to take photos of something (such as a whiteboard, handwritten notes, etc. ) then emailing the photo to the site. The “shot” is then available to you as a PDF or it can be emailed or faxed.

I thought I would check it out. I went to the site and set up my free account.

It was very easy to set up an account. I had to set up my phone model, which was not on the list but I could add it. It is at this point you can choose the media to use, either your phone or digital camera.

Once I had entered the model of my phone I continued on to where the site showed me the options available.

The next screen gave advice on how to copy and send the image you have captured. It was very easy to follow and I tested it out by taking a copy of my laptop  screen.

  In a matter of moments the document was available to me as a PDF or to send out. I could put into my blog or publish on a wiki.

 Most students carry their mobile phones everywhere they go. We have students who examine graffiti art as part of their studio arts course, who go to lectures/tutorials as part of their courses, who have notes with handwritten comments, etc. These could easily be copied/scanned for their own use and/or shared with other members of their class. I am sure others will think of more uses. It is a simple and very portable option.

Visual search engines look too “cool”!

Search-Engine-Marketing,
originally uploaded by Danard Vincente.

I have been teaching our students about how to best use search engines and also showing them some alternatives to Google. As homework the boys had to complete some note taking exercises using SearchMe, Viewzi and Cuil.The students loved the visual search engines and even though they were searching and taking notes from the sites they located, they were totally engrossed during the last period for the day. Note taking was not that well received before.

One student completed the work and uploaded it to the appropriate workspace. When the work was checked, the boy had used Google to complete the task. When asked why this was the case, the reply was that his mother had seen SearchMe and told him to “get off that site and use Google!” He tried to explain but she was convinced that he was not right and it was not an appropriate tool for him to be using.

It begs the question, why did she not think that SearchMe was a valid search engine? Did it look like too much fun? Did it just look too different? Has the Google marketing machine really taken over in our collective consciousness?

I am working on an on-line survey, in which I will ask our students to evaluate the search engines we have used this year. Perhaps I will have to extend any survey to the parents of our students as well.