Mobile devices support and enhance learning. The evidence for this is very clear. If we want to truly engage students in our field of study, then we need to teach them how to use their devices as effective tools for learning, creating, and sharing. There have been a lot of concerns from educators and administrators about the effective use of multimedia in the classroom. As cell phones and ipads first emerged on the scene, students and teachers alike didn't know how to effectively implement their use. So instead of becoming tools, they were simply distractions. Students played games or took and posted pictures without consent; which lead to headaches and school-wide bans. You can read these “horror” stories all over the Internet. But with any new shift in education, it comes down to the teacher establishing firm ground rules with regards to use in their classroom. Students are not allowed to take and post pictures without the consent of the subject, phones are not to be out unless directed by the instructor, and mobile devices are to be used as a tool for education. Good classroom management combined with clearly posted rules and expectations can help quell any unforeseen disruptions. To embed multimedia in your daily use, think about creating authentic assessments that are media based at the end of your unit. How can you achieve the same goals through assessment, but add a 21st century spin that helps facilitate mastery and fosters genuine engagement. An example of this type of multimedia in my English classroom can be seen at the culmination of our Canterbury Tales unit. The students create a scenario in which a group of travelers must get together and tell stories. One year it was a bus full of vacationers going to the shore, another year it was a rocket full of explorers going to the moon. Then, each student was responsible for writing a prologue for that character in the ballad style. After the prologues were written, students uploaded pictures they created of their traveler with their ballad and put them together in an iBook. This book was then available for private download from our library to be shared with friends, family, and the rest of the school district. Another example of this was the creation of “Dust Bowl Blogs”. My 9th grade American Literature class had to create and write blogs in the style and voice of a mid western farmer caught in the Dust Bowl. Each student had to create a blog with at least three entries that outlined the problems their farm was facing, as well as possible solutions. This was an assessment that was formally a journal entry assignment, but creating the blogs helped us embed multimedia into a pre-existing assessment. It also helped us to extend the learning as students could link their blogs to other informational pages, upload pictures of their farms, and leave comments and helpful ideas on their friend’s blogs in the comment section. In this way we are teaching our students responsible use, and showing them how their devices become tools, not just products for social media and games.
I had never used Survey Monkey before to create a quiz or a poll. My district uses the Schoology interface and it has its own poll/ quiz option. All my polls and quizzes are created through said interface. I did enjoy using Survey Monkey on the computer though. The steps were easy to follow, and the survey was created rather quickly. But I cannot say the same when using it on a mobile device. Every time I tried to upload a picture it directed me to purchase the upgraded version. As this is a BYOD focused class, I attempted first to use my device, but once I became too frustrated, I switched over my computer and used the web-based program. Taking the surveys was quick and easy. Most of our class’ surveys were fun, and had similar questions. Students would easily be able to create, share, and take others’ in a small window of time. This could be useful using survey monkey as a tool for an engagement activity. Math classes could use the data for statistics, teachers could use this for an exit ticket, etc. As for my English class, I don’t usually use polls or surveys very much, save for two occasions. With my Freshman I have the students complete an interest survey before beginning their persuasive essay on an important issue effecting teens. This way when they are having trouble picking a topic, I have a list of interests they created to help get them started. My students also use polls for classmates to answer pre and post questions on some of their projects. Again, we did not use survey monkey since Weebly has a built in polling feature, and the polls were placed on their Weebly web page.