The Powerful Computer in Your Pocket: Using Smartphones in the Classroom

Beyond scapegoating the phone

http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/12/10/fp_passanisi_peters_smartphone.htm

Shara Peters and Jody Passanisi teach in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades at an independent school in the Los Angeles area. They have some interesting things to say about the use of smartphones (call them "pocket PCs"?)

snip..." Once we move beyond this idea of scapegoating the phone and realize that computers and phones can do the same things, then perhaps we can begin to see the applications in the classroom for these powerful computers. Even more, we can begin to reimagine the classroom, taking into consideration all of the things that a smartphone can do for our students' learning."

Read the full article for more.

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Imaginative education through coding

Growing computer science education.

http://code.org/

(intro video on the home page)

Code.org is a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer science education.

"Tynker (a Silicon Valley start-up) has announced that they have created 8 new interactive tutorials that will be accessible during Computer Science Education Week on "Hour of Code".  Hour of Code will be hosted on  http://code.org and give any student, parent, and teacher an hour to experience the fun and imaginative education program."

This link to the tutorials is here: www.tynker.com/hourofcode

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