Smartphones in the Classroom

Does anybody else use their smartphone in the classroom as a teaching aid? My students love having timed races, or using it to look up words, etc. They treat it as a prized possession and they know that it’s a privledge that needs to be respected. It works well and they love it. Does anybody else use their iPhone or Android for this stuff? Any ideas for new uses?

I met lately a buxiban owner whom uses 10 iPads or so as teaching aid.
No one should forbid students using technology of todyay to become wiser.
Like Rocketfingers approach. - if the youngsters don’t take credit of course…

I would prefer to use monolingual dictionaries, with them only using their smart phones in dire cases. They need to look up the word and connect with it more deeply than an instant translation provides.

mon·u·ment [n. mon-yuh-muhnt; v. mon-yuh-ment] Show IPA
noun
1.
something erected in memory of a person, event, etc., as a building, pillar, or statue: the Washington Monument.
2.
any building, megalith, etc., surviving from a past age, and regarded as of historical or archaeological importance.
3.
any enduring evidence or notable example of something: a monument to human ingenuity.
4.
an exemplar, model, or personification of some abstract quality, especially when considered to be beyond question: a monument of middle-class respectability.
5.
an area or a site of interest to the public for its historical significance, great natural beauty, etc., preserved and maintained by a government.
EXPAND
verb (used with object)
10.
to build a monument or monuments to; commemorate: to monument the nation’s war dead.
11.
to build a monument on: to monument a famous site.

Yep, get connecting…

Use the iPad constantly. I’ve posted about a number of apps in the tech thread. Elder daughter spent a lot of time playing with edutainment apps on ‘the little phone’ before ‘the big phone’ came along.

Technology obviously has a place in the classroom, but I was asking more about how other teachers are using their smartphones to facilitate learning? If your school gives every student iPads, wow, that’s great. But what do you do with them, specifically? And for everybody else, in what ways do you use your phone to aid in games, or drilling, etc?

If the student’s are mature enough to utilize it without getting completely destructed it probably is a nice tool.
Keeping kids on the right page of a book can be a challenge, already.

Sorry but I am a control freak in this regard and a Smartphone for each kid is too much/many opportunity/ies for distraction.
I’d rather have any type of pc controlled whiteboard, instead.