“My school” in SMS

The initial practical activity proposed to students was: Reportage "My School". But as the results came out it became clear that the functionalities students use in this task are: sound and movie recorder, and camera. Although SMS is the most used mobile phones feature (see post “Frequency and use of mobile phones”), the way the task was designed did not facilitate its use. Since one of our main objectives is to explore ways in which young people actually use mobile phones, we introduced a variant to the initial task, and know present: “My school” in SMS.

Mission: to describe their school to other city students, using SMS.

1st step:
Presentation of the activity

2nd step:
They may go out of the office and walk around in school. They must produce the reportage as if it was live (as if the other students are reading the SMS at the same time that they send it).
Rules:
· 4 students compose the group
· They will go out in pairs
· Each pair has one mobile phone
· They have 30 minutes to accomplish the task
· The pairs should not send similar information (they should communicate between them to fulfil this rule)
· My mobile phone will be the receptor of the SMS, as if it belonged to the other city students.
· All the SMS must be sent to me, including those exchanged between them must be forwarded to me
· They make take some pictures, but only as a SMS illustration

3rd step:
Check if all SMS have been sent to my mobile phone
Transfer taken photos to my mobile phone
Discussion with students about the task - difficulties, facilitators, adventures, ...