Selected publications (.pdf)

"Education Change, Leadership and the Knowledge Society" 
Global e-Schools Initiative (GeSCI)  

Survey of ICT in education in the Caribbean
Volume 1: Regional trends & analysis
Volume 2: Country reports
infoDev 

Using technology to train teachers:
Appropriate uses of ICT for
teacher professional developmen
t
 
infoDev (Mary Burns, co-author)

Project evaluation:
Uganda rural school-based telecenters

World Bank Institute
(Sara Nadel, co-author)

The Educational Object Economy:
Alternatives in authoring &
aggregation of educational software 

Interactive Learning Environments
(Purchase or subscription req'd) 

Development of multimedia resources 
UNESCO (Cesar Nunes, co-author)

Real Access/Real Impact
Teresa Peters & bridges.org
(hosted for reference; RIP TMP) 

« Child soldiers and learning, 2 | Main | School-to-school (and parent-to-parent) networking »
Monday
Feb162009

Mobile phones and math learning in North Carolina

The NY Times reports on research supported by Qualcomm showing that kids using smart phones as part of their math learning posted improved test scores in algebra. 

The article also features some points in rebuttal: 

Texting, ringing, vibrating,” said Janet Bass, a spokeswoman for the American Federation of TEa the nation’s second largest teachers’ union. “Cellphones so far haven’t been an educational tool. They’ve been a distraction.”

 

And

Bill Rust, an education and technology analyst at the Gartner Group... said that computers and their larger screens offer a range of teaching opportunities, in addition to helping students to write papers and do research online. “I’d like to see if they can improve writing skills with a cellphone,” he said.

 

But how are the kids using their smart phones? They're recording themselves solving problems and posting the videos to a private social networking site. It's self-reflective, it's focused on the process, not on the solution per se, it's smack-dab in the middle of best-practice math education. (And it's not, at least not necessarily, taking place during class time.) 

Got a problem with that?

 

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