Abstract:

Colleagues often talk about the problem of smart phones in class. Perhaps faculty members would do better if they thought of the smart phone as an opportunity to be harvested in the class. They can be so useful to get facts in class. You should be able to get direct answers from the class on all kinds of topics once you empower them to use the phone in class. You can teach them empathy as they look at some pictures or video clips of life in another place. You can dive into world problems like the UN sustainability goals. You can take the class anywhere in the world or around the world. And why not, won’t they have the phone at work. Recently the author’s university started a security system that requires you have your phone with you if you want to log on to various systems. If everyone must have these devices, why not put them to work?

In addition, to the search benefit they are great cameras. This allows for recoding class work and posting it on the class site. This feature becomes powerful as an observation tool, to reveal how people are really getting using or doing things. If every student in the class takes a picture of their kitchen, you suddenly have a visual survey or student kitchens possibly can see some common problems. Students often take pictures of work done on the whiteboard. Why not due that for some of their in-class group work. You know they will not keep the big sheet of paper or a sketch of the whiteboard drawing so why not have the preserve it for the semester?

In the author’s classes whether team taught or alone there are many assignments that use the smartphone.
- Go out in the community and look for a promotion that is based on each of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
- Photograph a promotion that accomplishes X?
- Find Art that represents the problem you are working on in the University’s collection of 20,000 plus pieces.
- Photograph three sustainable or three unsustainable practices that you see at the university? In your home community, in your own home, etc.
- Take a Lego person, or something similar) into the woods and build a luxurious campsite for them. Use your camera on your phone to show off the campsite you have built.

The power to take videos are used in a similar way.
- Due a 90 second idea pitch but record yourself or be recorded by others and post it for grading!
- Make a video to try to each a person from another planet how to do something that we think of us as simple.
- Make a video that will represent this class to future students.
- Make a video interview of yourself.

The ability to talk with people all over the world should not be ignored. In one class students are asked to use What’s App and contact a person and try and learn what life is like for them in a short conversation. There are many positive benefits to the students learning how to do a cold call to a place that is in some ways strange to them.

The possibilities are unlimited. In the author’s classes in creativity, innovation, and marketing it seems almost limitless. It is a great way for the students to learn using a tool that they love to use every day. In these Covid-19 times finding ways to interest students and help them to see things in new ways are an opportunity to learn. The paper will discuss in detail some of the opportunities to engage with smartphones and make them an active part of student learning in your classes.

Keywords:

Smart Phone, UNESCO SDG’s, Maslow’s Hierarchy, idea pitch Empathy.