This book is a follow-up to my 2008 book, Toys to Tools: Using Student Cell Phones in Education. When I wrote the first book (between 2005 and 2007) I knew of only four K-12 teachers in the United States who had tried using students’ cell phones as learning tools. However, I was aware of the great number of middle and high school students who owned cell phones. Therefore, I focused on the possibilities of how cell phones could be used to extend secondary school learning outside of the classroom. That book explored lesson ideas, solutions for common concerns, and research to support using cell phones in educational settings. Since I wrote that book, numerous teachers have started using students’ cell phones in their instruction, both inside and outside the classroom. Their stories are unique but share some common threads. As I began communicating with these teachers, I realized how important it was to share their stories, beginning with how and why they decided to use students’ cell phones, discussing any problems they encountered, and finishing with their reflections on the results they achieved.
In this book I present 16 teachers’ cases about their experiences and activities with using cell phones: 11 from the United States and 5 from other countries. Of the 16, 10 teach language arts or social science courses and the other 6 teach math or science.
The purpose of this book is to illustrate many practical ways to use cell phones in learning: classroom groups, individual projects, homework outside of the classroom, field trips, and as communication tools for teachers, students, and parents. Every major subject area is represented in this book, as well as teachers from Grades 6-12. In addition, schools with students from a wide variety of social and economic strata are also represented, demonstrating that cell phones can be integrated in virtually any school district.