I am a convert.

In 1998 I got my first cell phone while in graduate school. I went with Sprint and don’t really know why now, but it was the place to be back then. That first phone lasted about a year until this cool new Nokia came out (I can’t even begin to tell you the model names). I immediately ordered that phone (and Nokia still does make nice hardware but they’re bigger overseas), but when my wife and I moved across the country to begin our professional lives and marriage I really didn’t need it. I knew no one in AZ essentially and went to work or home. No one to call.

I was an anomaly then. People didn’t have mobile phones like they do now. To save money, I really didn’t use it and didn’t have much use for a mobile for another year until my best friend was buying a new phone and had a buy two and get a deal. I convinced the wife and ended up with a new phone. These were basics that barely even texted. I was still with Sprint and had been happy with them. The service was where I was, the prices were reasonable (especially since I signed up so early and got grandfathered in).

Fast forward through my first few smart phones, and suddenly other companies had cooler phones. They had faster, cooler, easier to use phones. I still had my Sprint phone and by now the wife had been with me in Sprint for a few years. Then the iPhone came out, and it was a hit. All of my friends thought I’d be the first in line now that I’d spent the last decade working in Instructional Technology but I didn’t. I had no desire to be with AT&T (or Cingular or AT&T) or whatever it was called that year. I’d checked out the plans once and discovered I’d have to pay almost double what I pay now to have a second line with a flip phone (for the wife who didn’t care much at that point about phones). I told them where they could stick their phone, even if the iPhone really was that cool.

Two years ago I was still waiting for Sprint to get really cool phones and they still weren’t. At this same time my parents bought a new house, out in the middle of nowhere. They’d jumped onto the Sprint bandwagon with me about a half a decade ago (mostly because they didn’t care who they went with and Sprint let Mum call me for free all she wanted if she had their phone, too). Unfortunately their new home had terrible Sprint service. Terrible to the point where we literally could use NONE of our phones ANYWHERE on their property. Sprint even came out to check. We bought service booster to no avail and finally Sprint acquiesced and let them out of their contract. They signed up with the only company that worked in their new area: Verizon.

By now Verizon had been gaining ground and was a direct competitor to Sprint, and, in some ways, bypassing Sprint. The rumors of an eventual Sprint iPhone began to emerge, too. Many people I talked to thought this would never happen, and I always dreamed of a Sprint iPhone. By the time my parents jumped ship to Verizon from Sprint, the need for unlimited phone to phone on the same network was a moot point because of the new “unlimited plans”. All the while I was still waiting for a new, awesome phone. By now the best I could come up with were Blackberry phones and my Curve was pretty cool and worked well, but RIM was coming out with their Touch at this time as the next best thing and it flopped terribly (maybe they made money but I didn’t know anyone who liked it). RIM (for non corporation users) seemed to become stagnant and in the meantime this new OS called Android that I’d been hearing rumors about for years really hit mainstream. Verizon grabbed onto the Android market and ran! Partially, I think it was due to their lack of iPhone.

By now I was sick of Sprint. I’d been with them for about a decade and I had good customer service because I knew their key words, I knew who to call, and I knew what to say. (I’d even threatened to leave to get a free Curve when it was released. Yes, Free). Verizon was getting these cool Android phones pushing 1GhZ that had an APP Market that slowly grew to compete with Apple, and Sprint, well, Sprint had nothing. Nada. They had merged with Nextel and that didn’t make sense to anyone except maybe Nextel customers. There were (and still are) a few smaller outfits (like T-Mobile) that never made sense to me and were never really on my radar.

But then the Droid hit the market. I was locked into my Curve contract and knew the wife would not be interested in even hearing about my breaking a contract for something “new & shiny”. I waited. I wanted out. I’d waited long enough.

By now I’d been teaching with Google Tools for years and many times I had to force my mobile to sync with Google (and sometimes paid too much for some desktop APP that would force this) but Android WAS the Google market. It was seamless. It was to be a match made in heaven.

By the time my contract was up with Sprint, the Incredible had been released and it was, well, incredible. The camera alone rivaled anything I’d ever used before getting serious about photography. I could not believe I could do all the awesome things I always needed my computer for on my phone. I wanted it. I had to have it. It would change my life.

So I jumped ship. I told the wife I was adding a line to my parent’s account which would cut my personal bill down (she stubbornly stayed on Sprint and is still there). The week before I bought the new Incredible, Verizon announced their Droid-X. It was as cool as the Incredible but even more incredible! My brother-in-law works in AV so I ordered through him and in a few days I was an Android user. People always asked me why I went to Verizon and I told them honestly that in part it was because I wanted the Ultimate Phone Of All Time: an iPhone, and I had faith that Verizon would get it sooner or later. There was no way I was going to AT&T for it after they pissed me off about the second line for $99 for a flip phone (and yes, I made sure I was very clear it was not a second iPhone).

So the Droid-X was to be my intermediary phone, my transition into the world of the V the Z and the W! I was ready. I got the Droid-X as soon as it came out. Everyone was enamored by it. It was larger but I forgot about the size in a nanosecond. I could read books on it! (I’d been carrying my old phone AND iTouch for books only). Now I could carry just one device and it did everything. The Android Market was my Oyster and it was awesome. My phone was fast, it was cool. The 8mp camera rocked, and I could even shoot HD! I knew others who also bought Droid-X phones and loved ‘em.

We loved Android’s Swype input system. Now I could “type” faster than ever, and, sure, it takes getting use to but everything does. When I went back to my iTouch for something I automatically tried to Swype and couldn’t. It didn’t make sense. When we write, we don’t lift our hands so why when we type. I am barely lifting my fingers as I type this out on my MacBook Pro (see, I am invested in Apple!) But the iTouch keyboard was now archaic and annoying! When the Droid2 was released at Christmastime, many people were excited about the upgrade to the flagship Android phone. A good friend of mine bought it, and I was surprised that it had a keyboard. Why bother? It’s like adding a cassette deck to a 21st century stereo. It doesn’t make sense anymore. Well, some people like that. I suppose.

So now it’s been a few years since the iPhone speculation on another carrier was whispered across the nets. And then came the announcement, Verizon! iPhone! Ahhh…. awesomesauce! But was it? Was it too little too late? Sure, it would be exciting! A 4G LTE iPhone 4 on Verizon! Awesome, but NO. This was/is a 3G CDMA ho-hum iPhone. With the iPhone 5 headed to market in summer and 4G Android devices beginning to saturate the market, who cares that much? Well, Verizon did break every pre-sale record in two hours. Yes, two. Did I mention it was 3am-5am. Who gets up that early? I guess all of those people who have been waiting like me for YEARS!

But I didn’t wake up.

I didn’t even roll over in my sleep at 3am. Guess what I have? I have an Android phone. I have this cool OS that has a ton of features, is super fast, and syncs up seamlessly to all of my Google tools. The Market has almost everything I ever need (the only thing I can think of as a I write this that I don’t have is Instagram but PicPlz is gathering speed on Android to replace Instagram’s hype). I have a wildly strong camera, video built in, and speed. I have a phone with removable memory (it doesn’t take a dummy to know a 32G micro SD card is way cheaper than the add-on price for any iPhone storage upgrade, and, of course, I have Swype. And iPhone doesn’t.

When the numbers rolled in from local Apple retails, corporation, and early sales (after the pre-sale hype) from Verizon, guess what? The new Verizon iPhone wasn’t such a big deal. Who cared? According to other releases and records (here, here and here, not a helluva lot of people. Too little too late.

A year ago. Six months ago, I would not write this: I don’t want an iPhone. I love my Android. Dear Apple, you waited too long.

CC image posted by Chris Pirillo on Flickr

At the beginning of the school year I took the section on mobile devices in my classroom and made a significant change. Originally it began with the change from “Cell phones, mp3 players, and other electronic devices are not allowed in the classroom to removing the word “not”. I told them to take out these devices on day one and had these looks of worried shock that I would be confiscating these things (and with full disclosure, until last year, I did just that). Once they were all out, I told the kids to use them. They look around the room confused. I then explained how we would use iTouches, mobile phones, smart phones (e.g. BlackBerries), etc… in the classroom daily.

This began rockily as they didn’t think to use them for research, but we began using phrases like “Use your technology to…” or by modeling on my own mobile phone use. I would say safer several weeks the students began replying to problems that emerge in classes in new ways, and I suddenly realized these questions were coming from further online research by the students at their desks. I’d be discussing something and wouldn’t be able to answer a question, but then suddenly one of their peers would raise his or her hand and explain to the peer what they hoped to know. By doing so, he or she is now teaching others (which has a 90% retention of information rate).

I continued this exciting usage in class through out the fall semester. At the beginning of the spring semester I asked the students to procure a copy of Twelfth Night and mentioned the full text could be found online, and then I told them when the text was due. The next week when books were due, several people were sitting at their desks with just BlackBerries, iTouches or iPhones. I was disappointed that they did not bring their materials to class and began to call role and ask for their plays. When I hit the first students without a paper book in front of them and asked where his play was, he held up his mobile device: “right here, Mr. Adams”. He flashed his screen at me, and I quickly went over to his desk and there was Twelfth Night open on an ereader app on his device. Oooops. My fault.

This kids took what I’d been teaching them and flipped it to a need from their own, but I didn’t realize it because I hadn’t thought that way yet. As I went around they all had their play, and I would say more than 30% of them did not have any paper copy at all. Two students had laptops, one had a netbook, and the others had mobile devices. And not every device was expensive. Some people had basic phones where they could save “notes”. Here they had note #1 which was Act I. Note #2 was Act II. And so forth. (My question still revolves around annotating these files!)

Last week my students were finishing up this Twelfth Night unit and building a poster (yes, yes, paper and markers). Many students had out their mobile devices and frankly there were probably a few people responding to questions of when work will be over or when the peer groups for Mr. X’s class will be meeting. Looking over one girl’s shoulder, she was looking up the use of the literary device “place” in the play so she could use that on her poster.

While this activity was occurring, I was observed by a district evaluator. In part, the comments on the informal write up were “why are so many students texting during your class when they should be learning”?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by The Pylon

I felt the need to explain my pedagogical processes (especially since these evaluations are worth $6k+), so I wrote a response that I sent over to district. Hours later I was called to my administrator’s office. She had the email I’d sent to district in front of her and wanted to know what I was doing in my classes.

I explained about the pedagogical approach to mobile technologies in my classes, how the students synthesize the materials, teach each other supplementary information learned online, and present that information to the class and students. I discussed how there will always been people who abuse the situation and when it’s reflected in grades, that discussion is between me and the student separate from the classroom. She seemed relatively interested but hesitant; I then mentioned briefly that it was in my management planned approved last July. She relaxed a bit, turned, picked up my plan, and asked me to locate that section. I showed her the paragraph disclaimer that delineated my classroom objectives for mobile pedagogy. She smiled widely and, I think, was relieved it was there.

She said she was eager to hear what I find but even being called in and even getting the evaluation in the first place, really shows how far we need to go and change the philosophies of schools’ administrations.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by jk5854

We always make the kids put away phones, ipods, etc… but should we? Today in school the kids were studying for the rhetorical schemes quiz, and most had printed pages from Google docs where we had the definitions saved, and some had nothing, but this one kid was sitting in the back of the room scrolling through his iPhone. Most teachers may’ve just went back and grabbed the thing or told him to put it away, but I jokingly went back and took it. He said “but, I’m studying”, and even though I took it mostly because I wanted to play with it (come on, Sprint! get the iPhone!), I did look down. He had Google Docs opened through Safari (I can excuse his using Safari), and he was studying his words, definitions and examples. I smiled and handed back the phone. I thanked him for giving my blog fodder, he laughed, and I moved on.  Here is just one way that kids can use this technology for school. Maybe he planned to review online or maybe he just forgot the papers, but he used it the right way!

As for the whole Google Doc thing, I tried something new here. I added my 180 students as collaborators to the document, and I let them find the examples. I gave them the definitions (which they could edit) and let them find the other information. My colleague and I stayed away from the document (for the most part), but we were more than willing to answer questions before the quiz. No one asked questions in this class, but after the test they complained that some of the examples were under the wrong terms. I asked them why it was my problem. Maybe you’d say “because you’re the teacher!” but I did teach them something. I taught them that they need to be able to evaluate information and to be culpable for their own learning. There’ll be teachers out there who teach definitions and ask them to regurgitate, and then there are educators who lead the way and wait for them to follow. We hold their hands when they need it, and we stand behind them and push when they need it.