Língua Inglesa - Texto Complementar Unidade I

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Texto Complementar 
 
Disciplina: Prática de Ensino Língua Inglesa 
Professor: Palma Rigolon 
 
 
Using Smartphones in the Classroom 
Tired of telling students to put away their phones? A veteran teacher shares tips 
for using mobile devices as learning tools. 
By Edward Graham 
Ken Halla knows a thing or two about using technology in the classroom. 
For the past 5 years, the 22-year teaching veteran has worked to transition his 
ninth-grade World History and AP Government classrooms into a mobile device-
friendly environment where students can incorporate the latest technology into 
the learning process. Along the way, Halla created three of the most used 
education blogs in the country—“World History Teachers Blog,” “US Government 
Teachers Blog,” and “US History Teachers Blog”—to help fellow humanities 
teachers incorporate more technology and more device-based learning into their 
own classrooms. 
“Not every classroom can get a laptop every 
day, so [devices like smartphones], even if 
you have to pair up, become something 
useful for teachers,” Halla says. 
“The number of kids with phones has just 
been blown out of the water the last couple 
of years,” he adds. “Two years ago, if any of 
the kids in my room had a phone, it was a 
dial-phone that maybe they could text on. 
And now it’s all smartphones.” 
According to data compiled by the research 
firm Nielsen, 58 percent of American children 
from 13- to 17-years-old owned a 
smartphone as of July 2012—an increase of 
more than 60 percent over the previous year. 
And with over 50 percent of mobile phone 
users in America now using smartphones, 
the numbers only seems to be growing. 
With their easy internet access, a multitude of education-friendly apps, and the 
ability to be used at a moment’s notice (after all, what smartphone-owning 
 
Ken Halla with students. 
 
teenager would go anywhere without their phone?), smartphones have all the 
tools necessary to boost student learning. 
Here are Halla’s top tips for using mobile devices effectively in the classroom. 
Ensuring it stays academic 
Many teachers have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to phones out during 
class, since they assume—most of the time correctly—that their students are 
using them to text friends or update their various social media sites. But there’s 
a simple way to ensure that students use devices for educational purposes: 
change the classroom dynamic from lecturing at the front of the room to having 
no traditional front of the classroom at all. During class, Halla roams around the 
room helping students with their work, all the while overseeing everything to make 
sure that they’re staying on task. 
“It’s harder to do the negative behaviors when the phones are out and the teacher 
is walking around,” he says. 
Use smartphones to stay organized and assess learning 
A great app for keeping students on top of their work is Remind101, where 
students voluntarily sign up to receive a text reminder when they have an 
upcoming assignment due. Not only does it help students better organize their 
assignments, but it’s also engaging parents. Halla says many parents sign up for 
the app to keep track of their children’s homework. 
“I was stunned by how many more kids started doing the homework,” he says. “I 
just thought they didn’t want to do the work, but it was more that they were 
unorganized and had forgotten to do it.” 
Aside from the education-friendly apps now available, Halla has found online 
resources that can help support classroom productivity and be easily accessed 
via smartphone. 
Halla recommends polleverywhere.com to test students’ knowledge of their 
subject material before an upcoming test. Teachers can set up a question or 
questions based on what the students are currently learning in class, and then 
provide them with a text number. Students see the question with several potential 
answers—usually an A, B, C, D, or E template—and then they’ll text in the 
answer. As the students’ answers are compiled, the site creates a graph showing 
their responses. Polleverywhere.com also costs nothing to use for a survey of 40 
or fewer participants. 
“It’s a good way to see how the students are comprehending the material,” Halla 
says. “For example, if a lot of students are picking option C and B is really the 
answer, then I can go back and review the material again.” 
Apps for the social sciences 
Halla recommends a number of apps that are perfect for teaching social science 
courses. There’s World Wiki, an app that provides demographic information for 
almost 250 countries around the world; iAmerica, an app with information about 
each U.S. President and the history of the White House; U.S. Constitution, so 
students can have easy access to one of the most important American 
 
documents; and many others that are designed to provide students with further 
classroom support. 
Halla has created a list of some of the most useful apps he’s found for the 
classroom, which is available on his blog. While not all apps are available on 
Android devices, the large majority of them can be accessed on iPhones, iPads, 
and iPods. Also, before implementing smartphones or iPads into your own 
classroom, find out which apps are approved for classroom use in your district; 
and, if you find one you like that isn’t on the approved list, consult with your school 
and district administrators before proceeding 
Let fun foster productivity 
As a final tip, Halla suggests being open to letting students have some fun with 
their devices. He was surprised to discover that his students are quieter and more 
focused on their assignments when they are allowed to listen to their music during 
individual classwork—provided they use headphones and the music is not too 
loud to distract their classmates. 
“It’s amazing,” he says. “The noise level in the classroom goes down, and the 
work amount goes up when you let them listen to their music.” 
Halla asks students to only use sites that streams music. That way, they can stay 
focused on their work without the distracting need to find a new song every few 
minutes. 
And when it comes time to get back to classroom instruction, Halla simply has 
the students remove their earbuds, put down their phones, and focus on what 
he’s teaching. After all, not all learning can be done digitally—but Halla says that 
teachers have to adapt to the changing times and find a way to successfully 
incorporate these devices into their own classrooms. 
“I’ve always been that type of person who likes to adapt and change as time goes 
on,” says Halla. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t still be teaching this many years down the road.” 
 
Link: http://www.nea.org/tools/56274.htm