I first used an iPhone to teach mobile journalism at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University at a workshop on Nov. 27, 2007.

I also taught them social media and simple data visualization techniques in the same workshop.

The first thing I did I was to poll the freshman class about social media and I used my iPhone to capture their answers.

I asked the class of 43 how many of them were on Facebook and how many on Twitter. None of them were on Twitter. Only a few had an iPhone.
I shared the photos on Flickr (There was no Flickr app back then, I had to e-mail them from the phone to my account) and I asked the students to count the raised hands in each photo question.
I then lectured 20 minutes on Writing for the Web and structured text and then got them started on an in-class exercise.
They each had to interview a partner, find a site they both visited that day and write a description of it using less than 140 characters.

They also had to give me three search terms that would bring up the site.

While they were busy trying to describe what Facebook is in just a few words, I made a new slide in my presentation and inserted this graphic from one of the poll questions.

I wonder where those former freshman are now?

@robbmontgomery