Should mobile phones be implemented into the classroom?

There are many different arguments over the question of implementing mobile phones into the classroom. After reading the wikispace where the question was posted for the thoughts and views of everyone enrolled into this course, it gave me many different things to think about. Positive and negative points were added onto this page and all views were extremely valid. Each of the responses to the questions were placed under ones of De Bono’s thinking hats so the statements were easy to understand. I placed my views under the red hat which is the intuitive hat where the thoughts and feelings of the question are recorded.

My thoughts on whether mobile phones should be implemented into schools:

I feel that there are many advantages and disadvantages to this question. Mobile phones could definitely benefit in the classroom if they are used correctly and monitored to make sure the students are using them for the best of their advantages. Small things that could help students could be the calendar and calculator to apps that could be downloaded onto the newer smart phones like word apps, musical apps, iBooks, maths and many other different types. The keypads on any phones could also benefit the young students for many different reasons from the positioning of the numbers to the letters that correspond with the number on each key. The internet could also be a very good tool for students to use with the different educational games and search engines that can be used.
Although there are advantages there are many disadvantages as well. If the phones are owned by the students (mainly teenagers) there may be many different issues that could arise. During my teenage years at high school, there was an instance where inappropriate photos were sent to nearly the whole senior grade of the school. The internet could also help the students to find illegal photos or even videos on youtube that they would have no restriction to due to the fact that the phone is their own. Texting in class could also be an issue where the students are distracted by their friends and even social networking.

De Bono's Thinking Hats

De Bono's Hats are basically the different points of views that are used when looking into a discussion. There are six different hats represented by different colours.

Colour	Representing	Questions
Yellow	Positive points of view	Benefits: What are the good points? Why can this be successful? Why is this a good thing?
Blue	The Process	The Process: Where are we now? What is the next step? Where have we been? What sort of thinking is needed?
White	Objective points of view	Information: What information do I have? What are the facts? What information do I need? What do I want to KNOW?
Black	Negative points of view	Judgement: What is wrong with this? Why will this not work? Is this safe? Can this be done?
Green	Creative points of view	Creativity: What new ideas are possible with this? What is my suggestion for success? Can I create something new?
Red	Intuitive points of view	Feelings: How do I feel about this? What do I like about the idea? What don't I like about the idea?

Learning Style

After doing the Learning Styles test from Felder and Soloman (http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html) these are the results that I received. These results show that I am pretty much well balanced on the scale that Felder and Soloman used as nearly all of my results are around 1-3. The one exception to these results is where I scored a 5 on the scale towards being a visual learner. These results are confusing as I do not understand what any of the other types of learning styles other than visual and the website held no answer to my confusion. The test however was straight to the point asking questions that relate to real life situations that were easy to answer. If the answer to this test was straighter to the point this test would be a very reliable source to use to find your learning style.

Getting Started...

So this is my new blog that I have started for Managing e-Learning...
Although I have blogged before using a website called Tumblr, this is completely different and a little nerve wracking.
Wish me Luck!
Tahlia