When I began teaching twelve years ago I had no cell phone.  At one point, we bought a bag phone for my wife, since she commuted to work.  The day after September 11, 2001, I made the decision that we both needed a cell phone.  In the early days of owning a phone, I turned it off during the school day and kept it in my desk.  It is amazing how things have changed in nine short years.

Cell phones are allowed in our classrooms now, and they are the primary communication device for the coaching staff.  All of our scheduling and coaching business is allowed since nobody uses the school phone system any more.  In fact, I have not logged into my school phone account in probably a year and a half.  Most coaches just email or text their communications, since it is so convenient.

My students know I am an iPhone fanboy, and they are completely used to it being used daily in my classroom.  Here are some of the ways we use the iPhone in the classroom.

Grading

As a teacher, a lot of my time is spent grading papers and tests.  Some of the activities we do are graded as a class when we need to reteach some of the material.  When I began teaching, my wife bought me a grader.  It is a pale greenish blue slide rule where the number of questions is chosen and the grade is shown for the number of questions missed.  This is a must have for teachers.  iGrade is the same idea but on the iphone.  It even has the same color scheme!

Learning

Most days I begin the class using Today In History.  It is a free app that gives a historical event every day.  The kids have started asking me what the event for the day is when they walk in.  Anything to get them on task!!

Living on the Gulf Coast means a chance for tropical weather.  During last year’s tropical season I discovered Hurricane.  It is a great app that allows for tracking and live updates on any storm from a depression to a Cat 5 hurricane.  My Geography class tracks any storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is a list of other apps I use randomly to enhance classroom material:  History:  Maps of World, Constitution For iPhone and Ipod Touch, Declaration For iPhone and iPod Touch, USA Factbook Free, Top Milestone Documents-US, USA Presidents, U.S. Presidents- Cool Facts.
This is just a small list of FREE apps I use for my social studies classes.  I am sure there are apps for all subjects and all levels of education.  My students have come to expect me to incorporate my iPhone in some way into each lesson.

Fun

I recently reviewed App Vault Pro.  The application includes a dice rolling app with up to a 20 sided die to use.  My classes play a weekly review game in which we roll a die to decide point totals for each question.  The past two weeks we have been using the iPhone instead of a real die.  They love having the 20 sided die with a chance to earn more points.  They also love shaking the phone to roll.

Safari and Dragon Search come in handy to quickly look up answers to questions I may not know and am not near my desk.  They also serve well to settle any arguments among the students.  You would be amazed of the bizarre arguments they come up with.

Things I would like to be able to do

One thing I would love to be able to do on the iPhone is my gradebook.  I am sure I could figure out a way to do a list or a spread sheet to keep them, but a real gradebook app that I could sync with the one we use at school would be amazing.  I also would like to make it possible to plug my iPhone into my projector and use the apps on a big screen.  Some of the apps I mentioned would look great on my wall for the entire class to see.

We live in an amazing time, in my opinion.  The world is at our fingertips and my iPhone is assisting me in bringing that world to my students.  The phone has become a regular part of my daily teaching routine and who knows what more it will bring.  It is truly exciting to think of the possibilities and find new ways to incorporate the iPhone in the classroom.