Teachers Use Cell Phones in the Classroom
October 26, 2011 US News & World ReportYou won't find Willyn Webb telling her high school students to put away their cell phones, even though they are technically banned in her Colorado district. She's been using cell phones to augment her lessons at Delta County Opportunity School for years.
It all started when she forgot a stopwatch to time a student's speech, and another student whipped out a cell phone and used its built-in timer.
From there, Webb kept finding new uses for basic text-enabled cell phones. She now uses phones to poll students in class and send homework reminder text messages to students and parents. Students also use a Google text-messaging service that allows them to look up a variety of facts. After seeing how engaged Webb's students are, the school's principal has decided to look the other way.
Halfway across the country, Lisa Nielsen was disappointed with a cell phone ban Mayor Michael Bloomberg placed on New York City schools. As far back as 2008, she was encouraging teachers to reach students via text, and to allow students to use text messaging services to define words and look up facts and figures.
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Nielsen and Webb eventually connected via E-mails and text messages and coauthored a book of lesson plans calledTeaching Generation Text: Using Cell Phones to Enhance Learning.
"We think school should be preparing students for real life—and in real life, people use cell phones," says Nielsen, who authors the blog The Innovative Educator. "If you're making an artificial world inside the school, you're not preparing them for the real world."
New York City's cell phone ban persists—a spokesman for Bloomberg told the New York Daily News in July that the devices have no place in schools. "Mobile devices are major distractions that prevent all the other students in the classroom from learning," the spokesman said.
Education author and blogger Will Richardson writes, however, that cell phone bans can have detrimental effects on students.
"First, it teaches them that they don't deserve to be empowered with technology the same way adults are. Second, that the tools that adults use all the time in their everyday lives to communicate are not relevant to their own communication needs. [And] third, that they can't be trusted (or taught, for that matter) to use phones appropriately in school," he writes.
Nielsen says using cell phones in the classroom makes sense, especially in schools that don't have the latest-and-greatest technology. Most students have a text messaging-enabled cell phone, she says, and if they don't have one, they can easily share. An April 2010 study by Pew Research Center found that 75 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds own a cell phone.
[Learn more about technology in the classroom.]
"Cell phones are the most ubiquitous device in American households today," Nielsen says. "I work with teachers and students who would much rather use their phone than a computer—they've got instant access to the world; it doesn't have to boot up."
Cell phones' multiple features make them more cost-effective than many classroom gadgets, she says. Cell phone programs such as Poll Everywhere, which lets teachers poll up to 40 students for free, completely replaces expensive student response polling systems, which Nielsen says are "kind of a pain to learn to use."
She adds, "No one has to learn to use their own phones. Even if I had millions of dollars to waste, it's better for students to use the phones they already own."
[Read about other innovative programs in the STEM Education Center.]
Both Webb and Nielsen say that encouraging students to use cell phones turns the phones into educational tools, not distractions or cheating devices.
"You start managing the cell phone use, teaching them cell phone etiquette," Webb says. Instead of trying to hide their phones all the time, her students use them for class. "It takes the cat and mouse game out of it."
Webb suggests skeptical teachers and administrators start by encouraging students to use cell phones outside the classroom for homework. She recommends a free, text-based service called ChaCha, where people are paid to quickly search and answer students' questions.
She's even found administrative uses for cell phones, which now help her school save money that it used to spend on printing take-home flyers.
"We don't have a secretary calling every student who is absent; we just do it through text messaging," she says. "There's no more mailing about back-to-school night. We're saving money in paper expenses and stamps, and we're getting immediate responses."
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5 comments:
This is an interesting article about the use of cell phone devices for educational purposes. It also addresses a new way for teachers and students to communicate with each other... Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with this approach. Lap tops and computers are expensive devices, and if a teacher can successfully communicate with 40+ people at a time to make reminders and discuss assignments, all the power to him/her! The key thing to remember is that not everyone has a computer at home or access to broadband, however, most students from middle school to high school own a cell phone.
Cell phones are "real life" instruments and the primary way adults communicate with each other; at some point we need to teach kids to use technology effectively, and this would include cell phones.
I am sure that cell phones also bridge some of the digital divide we have been discussing as they are more accessible to a larger population. One key thing to integrate on the use of this technology is its "appropriateness," meaning when and how to use it in the classroom.
Wow. I never expected to read an article about a teacher encouraging the use of cell phones in the classroom. After contemplating this issue, I can see where the teacher is coming from. I do like the idea of teacher-student communication through cell phones. I believe it strengthens the student-teacher relationship and hoepfully the outcomes will be very positive. The article does not really explain how teachers will prevent students from cheating... I don't believe that encouraging students to use the cell phone for educational purposes and not cheating will really make ALL the students not cheat. I think this will be especially beneficial for students without internet access at home. Programs like ChaCha will be very helpful in assisting students who need help looking up basic facts that they won't be able to find without adequate internet access. I am unsure as to whether or not I would want 25 cell phones sitting on each of my students' desks but I am also not against students using cell phones as mini-encyclopedias or dictionaries.
In school, all I ever heard was "turn off your cell phones". It was natural for me as a student to put my cell phone away until the bell rang. I would sneak a text message in when the teacher wasn't looking or check my e-mail at lunch, but never would I be on my cell phone during the class. If students had cell phones out during class, tachers could kick them out. THey were thought of as distractions. Today, cell phones can be helpful during school. Students can find out answers to questions and learn more about a topic that is being taught. I can see where the teacher is coming from but I also know that cell phones will be more of a distraction then useful. Students can go on facebook and twitter while the teacher thinks they are looking up something that has to do with the class. It is easy for students to close out of the tab that they were on if the teacher asks to see what they are looking at. Computers are expensive for schools, however I don't think that having students take their cell phones out is good. It can also be a sticky situation for teachers to give out their personal numbers to students and teachers. After school hours are done, a student or parent should only contact teachers through the school or through email. I don't think calling a teachers cell phone is appropriate. Not all students have cell phones that have internet access which can make them feel left out. I think classroom computers is fine for students and cell phones should not be used in the classroom.
Teachers Use Cell Phones in the Classroom
In my school students cannot use cell phones for all the distracting stuff that it is to be used by students that have anything to do in class, but is permitted to be used if the teacher authorizes the student use, and it is what I do with student’s cellphones. They ask for permission to look for specific things as vocabulary meaning, definitions, spelling, pronunciation, copying biographies and so on. That is how I used cellphone in class. I know sometimes they, the students use it for texting, or listening to music, but are those students that go to school just to do different stuff, not to study, s they get a referral for such conduct and get one day ISS or one hour detention. Cell phones are permitted in cafeteria and some hallways, not everywhere. That was my school conclusion about it.
Jose.
Teachers Use Cell Phones in the Classroom????
I don’t think cell phones should be used in the classroom. I don’t see a need for it. The students should be listening to the teacher, working in groups and focusing on another form of technology that includes deeper communication skills. Also, I have seen teachers use cell phones in their classrooms, while school was in session and children in the room.
I think this is very disrespectful to our profession. Also, the students deserve respect-his or her teacher should be 100% present.
Thanks,
Laurel
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