Cell Phones- How have smart phones changed the way we look at information?
Season 1- Episode #5
Welcome to Tick Tock Tech! In this episode, we are focusing on the rapidly changing landscape of technology and its effects on education and learning.
In each episode, we will focus on a “fire” or a problem that educators and professionals may be struggling with. We will then focus on three options or tools for helping “put out the fire”.
"If you wanted to communicate with someone that was not a neighbor, you called them on the family’s ONLY rotary dial, landline telephone, which usually had a cord that could stretch around the block, or sent them a handwritten letter; affixed a $.05 postage stamp and deposited it into a U.S. Mailbox, which could be found on any corner."
In this episode of Tick Tock Tech, Anna and Cassie discuss the good and bad of cell phones and how they have changed our world.
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Transcript
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If you want it to communicate with someone that was not a neighbor, you call them on the family's only rotary dial a landline telephone telephone would usually had a cord that could stretch around the black or you send them a handwritten letter, a fixed
a five cents postage stamp and deposited it into a US mailbox mailbox, which can be found at any corner. Welcome to the tick tock tech podcast where we talk about all things education tech and teacher happiness.
Join your hosts and a cliff and Cassie frost, as they share simple ideas to guide you and bring meaning to your day to day experiences.
All right, Kathy I think about that quote and I have to think to myself, was it all that bad not having phones.
I mean I think I was in college when I got my first phone so nowaday, think about that I have so many resources at my fingertips I never had before.
So there's obviously lots of pros to having cell phones too and I don't think they should always have the bad rap of, we used to do it this way right it's like back in the day.
Our parents always said we walked uphill uphill there upsell back right to school right.
So let's talk about like cell phones and like the pros to cell phones like there are so many so maybe we can just focus on the positive use of cell phones for work related solutions.
So, like, more specifically, I like this one so like, we look back like the last 20 years, a lot has changed. You know like not having a cell phone wasn't horrible, but there are some things that are really good about having them now like I use my phone
for so many things that go beyond, you know, a phone call I should focus on probably one of the least things we do with our cell phones now, right, like I think about like, I would have had this in college like the number of things that I could have done done so much easier.
And I use my phone for work like every day for calls for messages for count like there's so many things I use it for so I think this is a great topic.
super excited to kind of just look at like things that are great about phones and what we can do with them.
Yeah.
Alright so before we dive into like coming up with ideas I just have to know about your week like I know we chatted about before we like even went through the podcast today about some like new life changes that we both have gone through and like the last two weeks so Kathy I'll let you go first like I want to I want to hear about your life changes, and I think our audience to know too.
So I have to say I like cash.
Well, during a couple of our previous episodes. We actually lost a family member, so we lost a 14 year old bass and how I felt like I was was snoring in my office so you guys would have heard her story it was pretty great.
It was kind of unexpected but she was 14. So, you know, unfortunately, they don't.
You know live as long as we do, unfortunately.
But we also have a six year old dog and she was completely lost. So we started on the hunt to find new friends and family for her.
So, just last week last week Thursday as a matter of fact, We brought home a couple of new friends.
We were going to.
We're going to bring home one basset hound puppy.
And then the gentleman that had her happened to mention that he has a one year old that he was looking for a home for. So we actually brought home to Basset hounds, a nine week old and a just over one year she's like, just about 13 months.
So now we have two new Basset hounds stubborn in the house and my six year old bones like my six year old dog I guess when I say six year old I should clarify.
Um, Anyway, she is so excited to have like doggy siblings again, like, it is absolutely crazy the amount of excitement.
I'm so like put up with pictures.
When we I think that's like me, at the end, yes on this podcast episode I think we need pictures because I it's also funny Cassie, Cassie, because I brought, we did the same thing as you did we did like we were on the hunt for like a rescue, I know you've been looking for one and we're just finding what was going to fit your family, so we applied to a bunch of rescues we're looking at we're looking for a lab something that was mellow little bit older dog for our young copy and then we ended up getting a puppy and 11 month old. So, a little out of the main puppy stage but, and she's a total mix total my, and we just love her so we've had a few days now so we'll share more pictures as we go through some of our episodes and like some of the things are dogs are doing because you'll, you'll notice that cats and I just love animals and love dogs so we tend to that we share pictures of of our dogs because that's part of our family too.
So, this is like this is your way Swiss Army our advertisement for a podcast like hey come on guys listen to our podcast come to our website will have puppy pictures will get a live cam someday to.
Oh my god. I've got so much recording of ours playing together now just because it is so funny to watch. So, oh yeah there's a little, little one to play tug of war and it is so cute.
I love it I love puppies.
All right. Okay now before we even get into our solutions because right we're talking about cell phones, what a great version of a cell phone because I would not have all of the puppy pictures and videos, it wasn't for my cell phone.
Yeah. Um, and I think you know I was thinking as we were getting ready for today, we need to do an episode just on like the camera of a cell phone and what it can do for accessibility for photos like I'm, I'm thinking like that could almost be like a
So let's not talk about camera today I think that's kind of like one that will focus on in the beginning, or later, I guess. So let's talk about some solutions so we have phones, we, you know, they get a bad rap sometimes for distractions and things, but there are some great things and so like one of my favorite is connecting with people staying in touch what's happening, like if I'm working with people around my district or in other districts, being able to like troubleshoot right away, get answers to people. I love that they can like, turn on like FaceTime and show me the problem and we can work on it right then and there, without me having to like drive across the district or, you know, travel, and I also really like that.
Like, I can keep track of what's coming next, and what I need to do, I should do a lot of my work on my phone because I travel between multiple buildings.
So that connection is great I don't have to wait till I get back to my office to get a message that I could have been out somewhere else.
And then, so you know the whole connecting with others and that I guess qualifies like, you know, phone calls, text messages, emails, but one of the other ones I really like is my calendar on my phone.
And specifically, my calendar paired to my watch. Like, this is like my thing, because I'm out running around all day.
And when I was in the classroom to like it's really easy to get distracted by what you're doing. And forget you have somewhere to be, or maybe I'm the only one that's no no I need that and I always set it for like an alert, like 10 minutes before.
Yes, and I love that one because like most of the places that I travel in a day or within about 10 minutes. So if my watch buzzes, I can be like, Oh, sorry, gotta get going.
And get where I need to be.
And sometimes it's nice to keep your notifications on, because then people will hear it and they know you're not just trying to leave them right like you really have to wrap it up because you have someone else who needs you.
Right.
Like, I have to say I've never done that one but I think I might start. Oh my gosh. And what about like I when you talk about your calendar to I think about, like, I use my calendar, my personal and my home calendar, like I share it with my family members and we, I have all I have more than one calendar that's linked to my calendar on my phone, and my watch, so I know when my kids have somewhere to be or I have to pick them up from a school bus.
At the same time, I know when I have to be at a meeting or I might need to be at home for that meeting, and be doing it virtually because I've got to be here to pick up this kid and get them here, so like pros and cons right we're almost to connected but at the same time it's I don't know how I would do it otherwise. Well, and I think of the fact that I think there's like a happy medium and I think that's something we'll probably be talking about in the future to like we have so many future episodes like that balance between not spending so much time on the phone but yet using it for, I guess using it for good and not evil, you know, that whole idea of the things that can do that help your day that aren't distractions.
And like you said with your calendar, that's completely the way I am I have like six different Google accounts that are four different businesses for work stuff for you know my family stuff and they all come to my phone, like the one place where everything is so when somebody says hey, you know, can you do this, I can see all of my world stuff in one place. Oh my gosh, and that's awesome. You'll have to see there's one of the, one of the resources I linked here in our episode was just interesting facts about cell phones and it talks about the most common places people lose cell phones, and even really what state was the most, and even, like, I think it's like New York was like once a year like Chicago was twice here I have to look at it I can't remember, but it just talks about, if you're in a certain City The most common places you will lose it and then also which cities lose their phones more often, like lifeline.
Oh my. Okay, so you're linking that in so we'll be yeah yep I link, link it in the resource. That's right.
I see it here. Okay, interesting, I love it.
Okay, I am absolutely checking that out. I love when we record these because I end up leaving with like a list of stuff I want to check out.
Yes, so I'll do a quick another solution real quick like one thing I really love is just like the driving on the navigation with my phone. Oh yes, yes, I can't, I remember back in the day like going with my family somewhere and just having my parents like yelling at each other in the car because somebody didn't read the MapQuest directions well enough or like didn't turn the page fast enough. And so I think back now and it's like, holy cow I can, If I don't even have.
I know I've got to get to this place on the other side of town. Like I can look at it real quick to know how much time I need to get there, or even like I use the ways app sometimes where it'll tell me what the best time to leave in order to make sure
I'm like not going to hell yeah times right so like these resources that were like, We used to have to like plan two or three days in advance and have printed out and like a stack and our car.
We no longer do that anymore, so like that I find is just like a pro to a cell phones like why did we do back in the day yeah we use MapQuest like hardcore.
It's actually funny because we took a road trip this summer to look at colleges with my daughter. So for the listeners were in Wisconsin like that's, that's where we're at watching it snow out the window right now, and like our family we road trip out to California and back.
And so I bought myself an Atlas, because like I wanted that backup because we were going to be going through some areas where I didn't know how my cell phone service would be.
And I had like all the maps for all the national parks and my daughter thought I was crazy. Like, I spent like when it came I was like looking at all the maps and like all of this stuff.
And we absolutely never used it. Um, it was kind of pointless but like just getting histology of it like, oh my goodness I haven't.
I didn't remember so yeah i mean i would think that like it's still kind of cool to like see how far you've gone right you like you don't have that visual like kids don't get that visual we don't get that visual and we're using our navigation right in
the same way like we know many miles right but like that visual on a map of like, going from here to here, this is fascinating. Well, and I think it's a skill that people should have, but let's use it.
Yeah, and every now.
I mean, my gosh.
Okay, so I love my phone. I do, and definitely, I know it can be distracting you know I use it for social media and things that definitely can take up time, but for the facts of connecting with others keeping track of calendars navigation it definitely makes life easier. And I think it's something we need to start thinking about what this is going to look like for our students down the road because you know when we were students, we didn't have access to these, and our kids have access to them now and we don't know what they're going to be using and how many years so I think it's important to like start looking at how can we teach kids to use the successfully so not just ourselves but our students as well. today haven't even begun to touch things like what the different apps on your phones can do the different accessibility features. The other cool uses for the camera.
So I mean, those will all be future episodes, and I'm really excited like get to the point of sharing some like really cool apps because I have some really cool ones.
But I think, yeah, this is this is a great topic.
And I think when you talk about this kind of stuff right it's ever changing, like there's more and more stuff coming out so we could like talk about this in a year from now on, they'll be the new resources and tools so it can never get old.
Um, alright so next we're going to transition to some, like a bright spot which we talked about this already, and we I my bright spot today I was like I need to surprise Cassie with something that's, but like I feel like we've had so much brightness and certainly happy things with our new poppies and our for babies.
And I will say that okay so we like have this planning sheet where we kind of like leave notes for each other.
You know I'm kind of like where we want to go with each episode and I have to laugh because like Anna, put in like where we like right like our brighten my day like our little fun fact she has like this big thing I should screenshot this and put it on the website, she has this big thing that says like Anna's bright spot, don't read like all caps.
So I'm like looking at it going on here Where does she have it hidden in here it's I can't see it was, it's great because I didn't want our bright spot to be something that I didn't surprise you with but it was hard not to surprise because we're so excited about our fur babies and that's the bright spot today. So, like the therapeutic benefits of having these like beef new for babies in our lives.
And so, growing our family and you grew yours I grew mine. So we're just going to make sure we share some pictures of our props in the show notes just so like put a smile on your face because who even if you're not a dog lover, or you don't own dogs, you can appreciate that these like gentle little like little beans in the world now are like happy a new home so like, just very excited so we'll share some of those and that's our Brighton, are bright spot for the today.
I like that and you know that's a really good tie in because coming up in two episodes we are going to start our first series in our podcast.
So we're going to actually take four weeks because you know about that time of year it's me like to start a second semester, and we're going to spend four weeks really focusing on self care, and coming up with some tips and tricks and ideas, some tools for self care, and like dogs are perfect for that, so we're just getting a jump on our like episode seven. So, Episode Seven, we will be starting that self care thing so definitely stick around for that.
Thank you all for joining us for another episode of Tic Tac tech. You can find links to information discussed in today's episode, along with references on our website and puppy pictures.