“By making the smart phone their workbench, we made students excited about becoming creators, not just consumers, of technology.” – USA | daily edventures

“By making the smart phone their workbench, we made students excited about becoming creators, not just consumers, of technology.” – USA | daily edventures:



What do you do when your students are more interested in their phone than in what you’re trying to teach them? If you’re Michael Braun, well, you make their phones a central part of their classroom learning. Braun, a computer science teacher at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle, created a Partners in Learningprogram, “Exploration of Computer Science on Smartphones,” which essentially teaches students how to create applications for cell phones. In collaboration with Rainier Beach High School, Southshore Middle School, Seattle Public Schools, andMicrosoft TEALS (Technology, Education And Literacy in Schools), Braun taught students to useTouchDevelop to create scripts. Students were able to install, run, edit, and publish scripts using Windows phones and Windows Phone SDK (software development kit). “They’re gravitating towards that in their daily lives, so it’s a way to merge the two ideas – social media and actual academic curriculum into one. The kids love it.”