Kids & Cellphones – From Mumbai, India to Tom’s River, New Jersey

[Note: Cathie and Elliot gave a keynote presentation - on mobile learning - at the Technology 4 Education Conference, Mumbai, India, July 1-3, 2010.]
Cathie: Anytime your life is kinda dull and you want a thrill…
Elliot: Take a taxi ride in Mumbai – during the monsoons!
Cathie: Yes, the experience defines the term “white knuckle ride.”  Traffic density simply beyond belief. It is telling when all the cars …
Elliot: … and bicycles and vespas and motocycles and people...
Cathie: …  are festooned with dents.
Elliot: At least our taxi had 4 wheels!
Cathie: Yes, Mumbai has “taxis” that are 3-wheeled motorcycles with a tent-like covering to keep out the elements…
Elliot: … more or less! In truth, the 4 wheeled version was only a smidgen bigger than those 3 wheeled little jobbers.
Cathie: For our readers, picture Elliot, not your Mr. Small to begin with, with an umbrella in one hand, an overstuffed computer bag in the other, squeezing himself through the narrow, back door of a Nash-Rambler-sized car…
Elliot: … as a monsoon is dropping its load of water from the skies!
Cathie:  In fairness to Elliot, he is becoming Mr. Svelte.  Everyone who knows Elliot – and that is a whole BIG bunch of people – commented about his new size during the ISTE Conference 2010 in Denver, right before we left for India.
[Note: Cathie and Elliot gave a spotlight presentation - on mobile learning - at the ISTE Conference 2010, Denver, June 27-30, 2010.]
Elliot: Oh gosh, blush, blush… I just stopped noshing and started walking…
Cathie: And that made a real difference – as all your friends noticed!
Elliot: <more blushing> From the feedback I was getting, I think our classroom and teacher stories opened T4E attendees eyes to the enormous opportunities provided by mobile learning on cellphones.
Cathie: The T4E attendees were primed to hear our message, though. Michal Yerushalmy, a long-time colleague of the famed Judah Schwartz, inventor of a still-wonderful piece of educational software - the Geometric Supposer,  presented the day before us, on her work using cellphones for math education.
Elliot:  The math apps she and her colleagues have created are MUST HAVES – and fortunately all students can indeed HAVE them since Michal is giving all her apps away free!
Cathie:  I agree with you – at least this once. Based on the penetrating questions we received at the end of our talk, I too think we did communicate our message to the T4E attendees. 
Elliot: Yes, yes, yes… like their asking –“Do teachers find it difficult to modify their curriculum to take advantage of affordances of cell phones? “
Cathie:  That is indeed one of the challenges. But the teachers in Garnerville, NY, Tom’s River, NJ, Katy, TX, Watkins Glen, NY, St. Marys, OH, all have risen to the challenge if we use the dramatic increase in their students’ test scores as a measure.
Elliot: On standardized tests no less – 30% improvement in many cases!!
Cathie: We need to document carefully those findings; honestly, it is hard to believe that scores could go up that much that fast. `
Elliot: The Tom’s River NJ teachers said that each and every student who was using a mobile learning device turned  in every bit of homework – on time and sometimes even early!
Cathie: THAT is astonishing. Yes, dear blog readers: we will document these results carefully! But, please read the case studies written by folks in the above districts recently published in a Special Section On Mobile Learning in District Administration Magazine.
Elliot: Kids are kids – in Mumbai, India or Tom’s River, New Jersey – cellphones and kids are a WORLD WIDE phenomena. Finally, each and every one of the world’s children can all have a genuine computer in their hands, 24/7.
Cathie: That is a wonderful vision…   one that won’t happen overnight, sad to say.
Elliot:  But we techies are ever the optimists!! ….. And, now that we have solid evidence that mobile learning can lead to improved student achievement, we have even more reason to be optimistic! … Now, if only I can squeeze OUT of this Mumbai taxi … so I can  catch the plane to Singapore…. Here’s my arm.. PULL, please!
[Note: Cathie and Elliot are giving a Keynote - surpise, on mobile learning - at the North Zone ICT Meeting at Nan Chiau Primary School in Singapore, July 6, 2010.  And then after traveling for another 24 hours, they will arrive back in Dallas & Ann Arbor on the same day they left Singapore, due to the magic of the International Date Line.]