Cell Phones in the classroom

            This week’s blog assignment was to find online resources that motivate and increase student’s interest in science and that prepare them for the highly technological world in which we live. In order to compete globally, all students should be able to bring 21^st-century technology skills into the workforce. 

What better device to accomplish this task than the CELL PHONE!

            As a middle school teacher, my students are all fully equipped with the latest and greatest of cell-phone technology.  The school prohibits the use of the cell phones during school hours but they students are always trying to access them at every minute that they can.  Wouldn’t it be great to be able to utilize the cell-phone as a classroom resource?

            Cell phones represent a type of technology that has been around for little over fifty years. However, it has only been recently that many people began to use cell phones as a major part of their everyday life. In the past, cell phones were used by business people to conduct their business. In today's society, one member of every residence of the United States owns a cell phone. Cell phones are interesting, useful and play a major role in our lives by bringing people closer together and keeping us in constant touch with one another. However, most people do not understand the physics of a cell phone.

                In reviewing the Georgia Physical Science standards, I discovered that there are two content strands that can be cited and which would permit the legitimate use of the cell phone in the classroom.

The two standards are:

GA S8P4.e – relate the properties of sound to everyday experiences

GA SPS9.e – relate the speed of sound to different mediums

            The above standards fall under the specific content area of Sound Waves and Motion.

I would begin to implement this content into my classroom by engaging the students in a Warm-Up lesson on the History of cell phones (see websites below).  This would definitely utilize the students’ prior and current knowledge of this topic.  Secondly, I would begin to relate to Physical Science content.

Turning Speech Into Digital

            Speech is sound in motion, but talking produces acoustic pressure. A telephone reproduces sound by electrical means. However, in wireless technology, a coder inside the mobile telephone converts sound to digital impulses on the transmitting side and on the receiving side it converts these impulses back to analog sounds. A coder or vocoder is a speech analyzer and synthesizer all in one. A vocoder is found in every digital wireless telephone. In this process, sound gets modeled and transmitted on one end of the vocoder and on the receiving end, the speech synthesizer part, interprets the signal and produces a close match of the original.

            When you hear sound, your ears are responding to tiny, rapid changes in the pressure of the air. These changes are called sound waves. They can have a single frequency and constant amplitude. Hearing is a complex mixture of waves with different frequencies and amplitudes. Sound waves range from pure sine waves to complex combinations of waves. The normal human ear can perceive sound ranging in frequency from 20 to 20,000 Hz.

            And so on and so on….

Websites

The Evolution of Cell Phone Design Between 1983-2009

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/05/the-evolution-of-cell-phone-design-between-1983-2009/

In Pictures: A History of Cell Phones
http://www.pcworld.com/article/131450/in_pictures_a_history_of_cell_phones.html

Phones in History pictures

http://www.freakingnews.com/Phones-in-History-Pictures--1842.asp

Cell phones in the classroom/ Evolution of the cell phone

http://historytech.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/cell-phones-in-the-classroom/
You Tube / with music

The Physics of Cell Phones

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2003/4/03.04.07.x.html

Cell Phones That Never Need To Be Charged?  Sound Wave-Powered Devices Possible
            http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201162127.htm