Cell Phones in the Classroom

Imagine a kindergartner with a smartphone. To me, and I would imagine many others, it's too baffling to even take seriously. What would they do with it? Who would they call? Are we to assume Billy down the street has a cell phone as well? Imagine that conversation.

Jimmy: "Hey Billy, which caterpillar is your favorite? I had an ice cream sandwich today."

Billy: "Girls are gross. I picked the weirdest thing out of my nose earlier. What did you say?"

Jimmy: "I said that I like bugs and I think...."(drops phone in sandbox and decides to bury it).


Even though this is pretty far off topic, as far as my blog post is concerned, it does have some relevancy. Liz Kolb, a professor at U of M, came in and spoke to our class about using cell phones in the classroom. During her presentation, she posted a graphic about what percentages of children have phones at various ages and there were actually kindergartners with smartphones. Anyway, just an interesting aside.

To the actual topic though, Liz brought up some very interesting points arguing for students to have their own phones and/or technology in a classroom. Among them were access to the internet for questions, an alternative way to participate in class (through a polling website or via text), and increased participation. She gave some examples of how various teachers were using cell phones in the classroom in subjects such as history, math and even English. After listening to her give her talk, I'm not sure how I really feel about the subject anymore. Before her talk, I would have scoffed at the idea of letting students use their phones frequently in the classroom. I may have entertained them being able to access them once in the middle of class, but certainly not have them out on their desks all day. I remember how I was in high school after I got my cell phone, and I was one of the better students in my grade.

After her presentation though, I can see some of the benefits that might surface from this availability. In my classroom, there are a number of students who are very bright but very shy. As a result, they rarely speak up in class and contribute to conversations which is quite sad because they have so many insightful comments on their homework assignments. If they were able to send in their thoughts electronically though and remain anonymous, I'm sure some of them would contribute a bit more. Additionally, I think that the idea of being able to quiz students online or even have them submit things via text or voice recording is really appealing as a teacher. It would be much easier to access these assignments, there would be no concern over losing papers or assignments and I feel as though students would enjoy this more than writing out all of their answers all of the time.

Despite these benefits, I'm not sold to the point that I would implement it overwhelmingly right away. In many classrooms still today, there are marked differences in the quality and cost of students' phones. It is very possible that a student would feel very self conscious having to pull their phone out if they felt that it wasn't as nice as some of their classmates. To that point, some students might not even have cell phones yet and they would be put on the spot for something that they can't (and shouldn't) control. The urges to use them for reasons other than academia are incredibly strong, and I can say that as a perpetrator of such restrictions. The school could make an effort to restrict the internet but as long a student has a data plan, these restrictions are meaningless. Despite the study that she showed us yesterday, I don't believe that texting has any effect on increasing the reading level and literacy of a student. I think that students who have access to phones and to large texting plans also likely have access to greater resources such as books and tablets which are far more likely to improve a students reading level and reading scores than text (Rite? Itz cray 2 thnk that talk lke this wld improve a students reading skillz. lol. Neway I'll ttyl, gtg start studying). Regardless, I certainly appreciate Liz taking the time to come in and speak to our class. I think that there certainly are great ways to involve cell phones outside of the class (polling students, having them turn in quick synopses via text, etc) but I'm not sure I would let them into my class with any sort of frequency yet. I mean, there are still ceiling tiles in a lot of classes, what if someone hid another person's phone in the ceiling?

And then this happened in your room?

That. Was an overreaction.