Guest post by musician Louise Campbell, Artist in Schools
I have a bias towards living life unplugged, especially when it comes to being in a classroom with a room full of students. Despite this preference, tech is a huge part of most of our lives today, and especially of our students’ lives. The goal of this post is to give you some tips on how to use cellphones in the classroom in a way that keeps student learning and creativity at the center of the experience.
Sound technology in their pockets
What’s one of today’s most accessible pieces of sound technology? Definitely cell phones. They record. They play back. They’re mobile. And most importantly, lots of your students have them. Our challenge is to make use of cell phone capabilities for artistic and educational purposes (N.B. As we all know, cell phone distraction is a real thing. And it has history! Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a telephone in his study because he considered it an intrusion on his work. I ask students to put their cells on airplane mode so we can use them purely for their sound capabilities and minimize distraction.)