Cell Phones

Toys to Tools prompted me to play with some cell phone and web2.0 capabilities. Set up a pollanywhere account and started a cell phone based poll at school. Topic was on raising the age for staying in school from 16 to 18.
Slow to get folks to use. I felt like I had promoted - power point slides on our big screens, e-mailed staff. Didn't gaggle it to them nor use the FP wiki. Not a convenient way to discuss these things with people - either students or staff.
Seemed timely - a bill was introduced in Iowa legislature to ban cell phones in schools this week. Did a test Gcast using my cell. Considering doing a mass podcast on protesting the bill.
Explored signing up for Jott (cell call to text) capability. Didn't finish; seemed to have changed. Only 7 days "free" - if you cancel within 7 days. I thought I was going to sign up at $10/month. When I proceeded I got directed to $4 or $14 dollar options - seemed that the $10 one had disappeared. The cheaper one allowed a max of 15 seconds of recording. Also a max of 40 messages per month I believe; an additional charge if exceed. I proceeded. At some point it stated that Sprint (my cell phone plan) charged 20 cents for each voicemail to text. I wasn't looking for this "service", but couldn't figure out how to turn it off and avoid the charge.

My point, Jott has some features that are annoying. Most web2.0 applications seem to have a basic free service and then add-ons for a fee. Not so with Jott. I'll shop for an alternative and sort it thru. Buyer beware is still true. I also want to explore a cellphone picture to flicker slide show.

I had digital fun with Wordle, displaying an hour long online chat on Des Moines Dropout efforts in a basic "tag cloud". Neither "teacher" or "graduation" appeared; student was the most frequent word.

Signing off for now; hope to add links on this post w/in 24 hours.