Monthly Archives: March 2013

Google has just announced a new product called Google Keep (see the original blog post here):

At first glance, it looks like it’s a cross between Evernote and Google Now. It’s similar to Evernote in the sense that you can quickly and easily add notes, audio clips, photos, etc. to a general digital scratchpad, but it’s also similar to Google Now in the sense that it’s well-suited for ephemeral things like to-do lists which you only want visible for a short period of time. From the phone interface, you can “swipe away” items to archive them and remove them from view, making it easy to avoid clutter without actually deleting things. There’s also an “archive” button in the web interface which offers the same functionality.

I’m playing around with Google Keep on my phone and laptop right now, and I can tell that the quality is a little bit rough. It would make sense, for example, for Keep to have separate “folders” or “channels” to place items in; however, as far as I can tell, all new items go in the same general slush pile. Ideally, a teacher could create a “folder” for each class and be able to click into that folder to automatically file away all notes, photos, and audio clips as belonging just to that class, but it doesn’t look like this is implemented. Until something like that exists, this might be a better tool for general productivity purposes, not for individual per-class collections of materials.

The homescreen widget for Google Keep is pretty amazing. The smaller option, a 3×1 widget, consists of four “input” buttons- new note, new list, new audio recording, and new photo. The larger option, a 3×2 widget, uses the top half-row for the input buttons while the lower 1.5 rows is a scrollable mini-window which lets you see your recent “kept” items. You can scroll down ticker-tape style to see your kept items in reverse-chronological order, all completely seamlessly and with no loading time that I could detect. The “swipe to archive” feature kind of breaks here, though. Obviously, you can’t swipe to archive on the widget because you need the same gesture to navigate from one home screen to the next, but even if you tap on an item to open it in the Google Keep app, it brings up a details/editing screen which also lacks the swiping functionality. On this screen, you have to hit Menu > Archive. Pretty clumsy.

I’m excited about this new tool, but until it’s been refined a bit more, I don’t think it’s ready for classroom use. I encourage you to give it a try, though, and let me know what you think in the comments!

PS: Here’s a Google Play link to the Android app and a QR code of the same!

Did you enjoy this entry? Follow this blog via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or LinkedIn.

The war over smartphone use in the classroom is a particularly uncomfortable and murky area of emerging educational policy. Different schools have different contradictory policies, and individual teachers may or may not adhere to those policies. More traditional-minded educators often distrust the notion that students can use technology in a mature and productive fashion, and even evangelists of cutting-edge educational technologies might argue that students should only use locked-down, supervised devices provided to them for limited use during specific lessons, such as school-owned iPads from a communal cart which can be wheeled from classroom to classroom.

J. Robinson from The 21st Century Principal is not one of those educators. He just wrote a piece called Let’s End the Administrator War on Mobile Devices arguing that focusing on smartphones as a problem is a red herring which impedes the development of better educational practices. He notes that many educators “believe fiercely that cell phones are nuisances and have no place in education,” but asserts that “it is that same possibility and potential for mischief that make mobile devices powerful tools for learning and powerful tools for the classroom.” He goes on to argue that policies should focus on behavioral issues rather than devices themselves, and he suggests that school policies ought to foster the “healthy” use of mobile devices in order to “capitalize on their educational potential.”

Robinson’s experience is with K-12 students. Educators at the K-12 level have the added burden of being in loco parentis and must both educate and discipline students. Where those two priorities clash is an eternal point of friction, and nowhere does discipline grate against education more fiercely than in the cultural struggle over mobile and personal computing devices in the hands of students.

I taught several sessions of the Etymologies course at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth program. Although CTY can be a very progressive and permissive program in certain regards, the policies regarding technology were always draconian—at least, as of 2010 when I last taught. The general message from the administration was that during the entire three-week session, students would ideally never use a piece of technology unless it were directly related to an educational activity. They especially should not be allowed to access the Internet during those three weeks unless in a computer lab and under the direct observation of a faculty member. If we would ever catch a student with a cell phone—or heaven forbid, a smartphone—we were to confiscate it and turn it in to the site director. As a digital native myself, I felt sympathy for my students, but hey—rules were rules. I gave warnings instead of doing immediate confiscations, but on more than one occasion, I had to play the role of Meanie-Teacher Phone-Snatcher.

Currently, I teach ESL to adults. I encourage my students to use their phones in class. I tell my students at the beginning of the semester that I’m interested in how we can use technology to help us learn and that I want them to feel comfortable using their devices for productive purposes. If they want to take a photo of my whiteboard or of my presentation slide, for example, then that’s fine. But I also tell them that we’re all adults, and I expect that they will be mature and trustworthy in their phone usage. If I do catch a student on Facebook or otherwise goofing off, I ask them firmly and politely to get back on task, but I’m not in loco parentis—I have the luxury of knowing that my students are adults who are ultimately responsible for their own actions and their own learning.

What’s your perspective? Should students be trusted to use their own devices in the classroom? If so, under what conditions? How can the use of a personal smartphone or tablet enhance a student’s learning in your classroom?

Did you enjoy this entry? Follow this blog via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or LinkedIn.