Using Students' Devices to Teach

My 6th grade students loved being able to bring their own electronic devices into my classroom Normally students were required to keep their electronic devices turned off and kept in their lockers, so it was a treat to be allowed to turn them on and show them off to their friends.

The trick to effectively integrating the devices into the lesson is to get students to learn content through these devices and not just play with them. One writing lesson that proved very effective utilized texting and blogging. Students were paired in teams of 5. One student would start a story and text it to another student who would add a sentence to the story and pass both sentences on to the next student. Students with tablets would use the class blog to write their story one response at a time. Students who did not have cell phones or tablets used the classroom laptops to join in the story writing. The resulting stories were shared with the class. I was able to address several ELA concepts and learning modalities. Best of all, the kids had fun!

This article from the New York Times advocates the use of student owned devices in the classroom.

New York Times Article