Edward de Bono and his Hat Collection

Edward deBonos' thinking hat system consists of 6 'hats' which each symbolize a style of thinking.  This system provides a foundation on which both group discussions and also individual thinking can be based to provide constructive, intelligent outcomes. 

A brief overview of the hats and their meanings is below:

• Thinking (Blue) - thinking about thinking
• Information: (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
• Good points judgment (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
• Bad points judgment (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
• Emotions (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
• Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes

On the campus wiki I wrote the following under the Black Hat section:

"I think that mobile phones in the classroom are more of a hindrance than a help. By looking around the lecture rooms you can see the number of students that are distracted in lectures by their phones and these are mature students. If school children were to use their phones during lessons I think that they would distract both themselves and other students around them."

After reading a lot of other entries on the class wiki I found that I may have juped to conclusions with my first negative thoughts about mobile phones in the classroom.  After a bit more reading I ended up settling on the idea that mobile phones in the classroom and also out of the class can support life-long learning that is also, 'life-style' learning.  By this I mean they are learning when and where they want to .  The learner, with the use of their mobile phone becomes a discoverer of information and this discovery process can all be documented, stored and carried with them on their mobile phones. 

The constructivist learning theory basically says that learners should build knowledge and skills and that understanding comes from these rather than from other force fed data sources.  When I studied building design we had to create a visual diary which consisted of photographs and comments about buildings and general design ideas, placed in a scrapbook and handed in to the lecturer.  If mobile phones were used within that course we could have taken both photos and videos of interesting design features, then uploaded them into a blog or wiki and build a visual diary that is accessible anywhere and at any time.  This would make for a much more engaging task and students would not feel like the task was as large because they always have phones on them and could just take a quick 'snap' and add it to their visual diaries later.