For the past few years, there has been a constant battle going on in schools over cell phones. Kids want to carry them to school and use them for texting and talking during the school day. The adults for a number of very good reasons (distraction, cyberbullying, cheating. . . . ) don’t want that to happen. As a result, there is a continuing cat-and-mouse game going on in schools in which kids pretend that they don’t have cell phones, and adults pretend not to notice that kids have them. Every now and then the game gets ugly when a kid takes out a cell phone, uses it in front of a teacher or administrator and then has to be disciplined for use of the phone.
Recently, I’ve been trying to find ways other than Power Point (computerized version of 1980’s filmstrips) to use technology in my classroom. I’m looking at streaming video, hypertext, blogging, interactive email, and some other cool tech tools, but the cell phone, at least for now, is off limits. I can help but wonder about how great it would be if we could figure out a way for students to use their cell phones in class? Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of texting their friends, students texted their teachers with questions, ideas, criticisms? Wouldn’t it be cool if students could access teacher websites from their phones? I know it is an idea fraught with LOTS of problems, but still it seems ashame not be able to put such an available technology to good use.
This morning on MSNBC, my curiosity about using cell phones in the classroom was peaked again when I found this article “Cell Phones Welcome in Some Classrooms”.
I’d love to hear what other people think about this.
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