phones in the classroom

For this project I interviewed my husband, Jason, who teaches 9^th grade US History at a brick and mortar high school.   In the past few years he has begun letting his students use cell phones in his class on a limited basis. “I do allow my students to use their phones for certain activities. Apps like Google Earth and Dictionary can increase student interest and involvement. They can also use their phones for research. Whenever applicable, I give them permission. They must ask and there is absolutely no texting. If they text, I confiscate the phone. In private discussions with my principal, he supports these activities, as long as my rules and expectations are made very clear to the students and I am consistent. However, if any problems developed in the class with cell phone use, I am sure that the school policy would be enforced. The administration is thinking about allowing cell phone use throughout the day and a ban on use only during instructional time. It would allow teachers to decide whether cell phones can be used in class and under what conditions.” Currently his school has a very strict no cell phone policy.  Students are allowed to have cell phones but they must be turned off during school hours.  Jason found that it is more time efficient to allow his students to use their phones.  There are laptop carts available for him to use but not every lesson warrants the use of a laptop for the entire period.  Sometimes the students just need to look up definitions or quickly find research.  It takes 10-15 minutes to distribute and boot the computers.  He found that a majority of students have their cell phones with them and it only takes seconds for them to access the information.  If a student does not have a phone they can use a computer or sit with someone who does have a phone. 

 

He does not have parental involvement when he uses the phones.  He does not make it very public that he uses the phones since it is against school policy.  Jason has found “that the majority of parents text message their children throughout the school day even though they are aware of the school policy. I think that many parents understand the policy but are willing to break it.”  He has gotten positive feedback from the students.  Using their phones makes them more interested in the material and they are more comfortable and work faster when they use their phones instead of the computers. 

“The major challenge is enforcing a policy that many students and parents are willing to break. Most parents do not view using a cell phone as misbehaving and therefore see is as a very low level and acceptable offense. Technically, there is an issue of students gaining unpermitted access to the school WIFI. This, according to what I’ve been told, may be in violation of state law. It involves something about equipment using school servers being monitored for proper use and viruses. Also, the time factor of teachers trying to teach and monitor proper cell phone use is an issue. Many teachers have been very adamant that they do not think that cell phones belong in school at all. They feel that they will just be used for cheating and distractions. They also think that the easiest way to prevent texting is to ban cell phones from the school.” 

I learned a lot from the interview.  I had been against cell phone use in the classroom until I started researching the different sides.  It seems that it is a losing battle to prevent students from using their phones.  But why should we prevent phones?  We should use and embrace phones as educational tools and teach our students how to use them responsibly and constructively.  Jason is successfully utilizing phones in his classroom and the students are better off because of it.