5 ways of using smartphones to teach... and learn.

Smartphones and apps are tools -no good, neither bad, just powerful tools-, and you can decide whether to use or ignore them, but your students are definitely using them. I bring you 5 suggestions to teach through smartphones.

There is a strong debate regarding laptops and PCs versus smartphones and (maybe) tablets as the future's king devices (not only in education but in general) and, in my very humble opinion (I mean, there are true experts out there), smartphones have taken the lead if they haven't already just won the battle. Young people live connected to each other 24/7, and only smartphones give them that kind of connectivity, and I feel that's enough. It's all about going with the flow or trying to resist.

I know many of my peers don't rely on apps for teaching, although almost no teacher that I know dismisses them completely. I'd recommend this post of my friend Ovi Barceló about the matter. Now, smartphones are much more than apps, and the bare truth is that apps are here to stay and that students, especially Secondary school ones and older, are more used to them than they are to more complex and powerful software.

An important side question arises too: if they are using their smartphones so much, shouldn't we teach them how to properly do it? Or, at least, show them that they can actually use them for improving their performance? I believe we should.

 Here there are 5 ideas to do so:

1. Access to Sharepoint contents while studying anywhere

We use Sharepoint in my school to upload contents for our students, and I use it profusely. Senior ones, who are getting ready to access the University, have to face Selectividad, which is similar to the British A-levels, and I have loads of useful information there for them: from the Powerpoint slide presentations I use in class or links to useful videos and websites to hundreds of solved problems and exams from earlier years in PDF. When my students are studying in the library or in a coffee shop (yes, I know, but they do it all the same)  it's quite typical to find that they have their phones on top of the table, in front of their papers, with my Sharepoint contents there as a support tool. They may not have a computer with them or they can even have one and use the phone as a kind of second screen, but they are definitely using their phones as a versatile tool to help them be more efficient in their study.

2. RSS Feeds for gathering relevant information

One of the subjects I am currently teaching is Entrepreneurship for vocational students. They are my older students, young adults actually, and they work in creating a business from zero to success. Every couple of them are developing a completely different idea, from boat parties or adventure trips to, ehem, a personal training app (yes, I know, I can't completely discard that a tiny suggestion was made). Of course you can bet that they all have fancy mobiles and know how to use them for evil. As I needed them to learn the most about their respective markets, and these were so varied, I've found that teaching them what RSS feeds were, and how to use them, has been one of my most brilliant moves. Now they'll come up on Monday with some weird piece of information from this or that blog of an expert, and can take it into account for designing their business plan. By the way, I use feedly, but they use different feeds.

3. Pinterest for inspiration

With my kids aged 12 we are participating in the Global Enterprise Challenge, and one of the stages included research of ideas for creating and manufacturing products in several categories. Students pounced on browsers to find things they could manage to manufacture, and while a few of them succeed, many others got frustrated either by the lack of information or the overinformation. I found that using pinterest as a source of inspiration was really useful for them, because they could jump from one board to other and find related ideas that were possible. I know pinterest, like other social media, is not a bare app, but as it happens with, say, twitter, it's mostly used in smartphones. Have you noticed that pinterest is a kind of teacher's social media?

4. Khan Academy for reviewing content

I'm also teaching maths to senior students of the Social Science branch and it's more usual than I'd had desired that I have to bear with kids who have blanks in knowledge that they should have learned in earlier courses. No matter if that happens because they forgot it or because they sadly never learnt it, Khan can help them reviewing these particular lacks. And they can go over and over again through the videos: recorded Sal is more patient than we all are, assume it. While waiting for the bus back home they put their earphones on, play the video and have a nice trip to the derivatives world.

5. OneNote app for taking notes on the go

It doesn't matter if it's for a group work or any individual task, they will have the superb idea while they are hanging out with friends, about to sleep or cueing in the cinema. Well, they've got their phone with them. Just need to open OneNote app and write it down right away, and they can enjoy the film without having to keep it in mind all the time.

To conclude, if you've been stubborn enough to get here, I have to say that there are many dangers also in the abuse of the smartphone. For example, you need to teach them that they can't have their social networks on, particularly twitter and whatsapp, if they are to have the necessary focus in study to learn something worth learning. There will be time for tweeting when you've finished, buddy. But that's also important, to teach them what not to do with the device. It's not a smartphone fault, anyway, but a lack of proper training in its use. And to train them properly we must avoid ignoring it.