Using smartphones in the classroom

Hi fellow teachers,

I’ve been trying something different these days, and I want to get your reaction to it.

For a few years, I’ve been making videos for the Nice Talking with You YouTube page. They’re just short monologs, but they get a lot of views, so I guess students like them.

But now, I want to take it a step further. Everyone’s talking these days about using smartphones in the classroom, right? I made a short quiz to accompany the videos, so students can listen and see if they understand. Oh, and I added the script, because students sometimes ask for it. (I always hesitate to do that because some learners turn a listening comprehension activity into a reading comprehension activity. Oh well.)

Anyway, little by little, I’m building up a number of activities for our students. Short and simple. I tested them on my first-year students. I sent them the URL, and they did the whole thing on their smartphone, in class.
Most of them finished the task in about 4 minutes and got an average score of 3 out of 4. Sweet!
Please take a look at the quiz by pressing the button. If you think it’s something your students can benefit from, please share it with them!

And if you have a comment or a suggestion about this, please drop me a note here on the blog.