The already-overworked teachers involved in the trial were getting very stressed. It got confusing and we couldn't figure out why some pupils could get internet and others couldn't. First some phones' data connections were intermittently not working. It took us a while to work this out though. I don't know the exact figure, but I believe it was pretty scary(*). The kids did point out they felt they had been using it a lot so we checked up and were assured by the company that there was a £5 cut-off in place. We were happy for them to be using the phones. Give a bunch of 17 year olds a phone and say there is £5 of credit before cutting off and they will use it. This cut-off wasn't set up properly by O2. This turned out to be the second problem we couldn't really have avoided. We were told there was £5 of 'credit' on the phones, and as soon as that was used it would cut off and they wouldn't be able to make any calls to non-O2 numbers (except 999, of course). This meant that the pupils could call and text each other at no extra expense. The bonus to the project was the phone provider, O2, offered us unlimited calls and texts to other O2 customers. There was now no-one with the time to do the troubleshooting or chasing up companies. Was the first problem that we couldn't really have avoided. However a couple of days after the launch I had to go off on sick leave. Nothing too major within the first few days.
#POWERPOINT TELEPROMPT TEXAS CRACKED#
Issues with the keyboard on one phone, another phone that didn't have the website filtering installed, sites that were blocked that we wanted unblocked, a cracked screen. The idea was that with unlimited internet access on the phones, the pupils would be able to research on the web, upload photos and videos of science experiments, and record French, German and Spanish speaking practice for example (I believe we are the only school in Edinburgh to offer three foreign languages) It was a few months later than planned but at least we'd managed it. I'd say "gone so far" but I think the project is pretty much over.Ībout a week or so after I got back from the conference we distributed the phones to the senior pupils. I'm now thinking about how the project has gone.
Last year I presented to the conference about the mobile phone project in our school that was about to be launched to the pupils. Recently I've been seeing lots of references to the Handheld Learning Conference in October this year.