Cell phones in the Classroom

I interview a high school math teacher in my district about the "Minute To Win It" project she does with her statistics class.  The idea of the project is for students to work in groups of three or four and create an experiment for students, teachers, and administrators to complete in one minute.  Students are given a day to create the experiment, then the teacher approves it or ask the students make changes and resubmit the experiment.  The teacher sends an e-mail to other math classes inviting the classes to come complete the student's experiments in order for the students to collect enough data.  I participated this year with my class and below are a few of the many experiments that I had to complete in one minute.

•  I was given head phones and I had to listen to a students cell phone play different clips of songs.  I needed to name as many artists that sung each song in one minute.
• I had to name as many presidents as I could in one minute.
• I had to eat as many marshmallows as I could in one minute.
• I had to watch a students cell phone show different famous people and name as many as I could in one minute.
• I had to do as many push ups as I could in one minute.
• I had to hold a students cell phone and do as many jump ropes as I could in one minute.

The teacher reported that "many students used their cell phones to actually create a play list of songs and a slide show of famous people.  Other students used an app that measures a persons heart rate and jumps per minute.  While a few groups used their phone as a countdown clock and they recorded the information by hand."  She was much more in favor of them utilizing their phone for something more than a countdown clock. 

She stated that "the class records each persons data for two days and needs at least 100 people to complete their experiment."  After two days, "they have to use their data to create statistical graphs and analyze the data for trends." 

I asked more questions and below are her responses.

• What happens if someone from the group is absent one or both days when the experiment is completed?  I normally let the group decide on the consequences.  Typically, since this is an AP Stat class most of them are here and attendance is not an issue.
• What happens if they do not get 100 people to complete their experiment?  They are docked points.  Giving the groups two class days to collect data is normally enough time.
• The groups that used their cell phones to collect data, what happened if the phones app or slide show didn't work in the one minute?  I told them to redo that persons data and not calculate the data if a malfunction occurred with their phone.
• Was administration ok with allowing the students use their cell phones in class?  Since we are now allowing students to BYOD it was not an issue.

Overall, it was a great opportunity to see first hand how successful she is with doing this project with her class.  It was also great to see how creative students can be when they collaborate.