THE SKINNY ON MOBILE: At least “52% of students often check their phones before getting out of bed in the morning,” according to Answer Underground (and first reported here on Edudemic). The stat begs a couple of questions: 1) Why aren’t students receiving a daily text message, email, tweet, Facebook notification, or Tumblr update (really there’s an option for everyone out there) to frame intended learning activities and outcomes daily; and 2) What are they chewing on instead before they hop out of bed and get ready for school? With auto-tweets and mass texting, it shouldn’t be terribly hard to beat the social media mass marketing machine for first dibs on your students.
Another compelling point for teachers creating their own apps like featured DILO teacher, Mrs. Catherine Flippen (who coincidentally already texts her students the night before or morning of class): “the biggest feature students want in an app is simply not a ton of features.”
While we trust the Answer Underground’s research methods, we still wonder if this request is another in “less is more” credo shared by every student who's ever fretted over doing homewok. Less text, more pictures... less homework, more time with friends, less school time, more summer time --- well, maybe teachers can get in on that bandwagon, too!
