Smart Mobs in the Classroom

Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs, is a great article to where our society seems to be heading to. Rheingold states, “Smart mobs are an unpredictable but at least partially describable emergent property that I can see surfacing as more people use mobile telephones, more chips communicate with each other, more computers know where they are located, more technology becomes wearable, more people start using these new medias to invent new forms of sex, commerce, entertainment, communion, and, as always, conflict.” Rheingold’s statement is definitely true. As we see today our society has emerged tremendously into a technology savvy culture. Smart mobs is what happens when technology, such as mobile devices develop. They have the power thru their techno-devices to drive communication and make things happen, such as the Filipinos toppling President Estrada through organized text messages. The example I found is on you tube. This video is of a smart mob exercise. It is a bit immature and informal since it is based in a grade school; however it is a great example of smart mobs. These students had to figure out haikus through text messaging. This just shows that, for one, mobile devices play a huge roll in society, even in the classroom! More people even a younger audience is experiencing the usage of mobile devises. This example actually was very surprising to me. Usually cell phones are a big No No in school, but this is one example that shows the usage of cell phones in the school environment. Anyone can be considered a smart mob with the use of smart mob devices. Rheingold makes a good point about smart mobs being unpredictable. I would never think that a smart mob would be considered a gradeschooler. With the more technology coming out, I am curious where our society is headed next!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOn5Am6Lt5E