Just a nottio...

Through somewhere, I ran today into a link to this article in the Digital Learning Environment, about cell phones as viable tools in the classroom. Scroll down to the list of apps under the table. I knew about some of them, but not many. I checked out a few and visited a link which brought me to the From Toy to Tool blog, which brought me to Yodio.

Wow. We have an environmental trip experience coming up and a town history lesson in the spring - Yodio would be beyond fun. Looking ahead six months, this looks promising...

After over a week of conferencing about research ideas, tools, and results, I am ready to see what kids can do via Yodio in terms of reporting. An Yodio product would be a welcome change from 80 poorly written first attempt at a research summary. Better yet, it would be a great way to assess actual learning about topic. Of course, I could just meet with each student for 5 minutes...

I am Yodioing without the digitalization of it all. So in a sense, the technology is truly transparent - or maybe it is an unnecessary toy. It depends on how the teacher looks at it. Many of my students would love to Yodio - an equal number would rather just dialogue with me about a slide show of computer images.

After thinking about ten minutes, I would rather assess the talking and encourage the Yodioing. Teach me and yourself (dialogue) + teach yourself and your classmates (Yodio). They are not mutually exclusive, both are important, and either one is practice for the other. Yo.