Cell Phones in the Classroom

Educators face competition for attention from a ubiquitous uninvited classroom guest, the smartphone. Like movie theater operators and driving-safety experts, teachers viewed cell phones as a distraction. But now educators are exploring the once unthinkable: could cell phones - under the right circumstances - be a new chalk board?

In 2007, an excellent educator who was known for incorporating technology into his classes advised me not to assign YouTube videos to my students. "It has too much of a distracting quality," he said. "You may do better to stay away from it." His concerns made sense.

Does your staff need Educational Technology training? The K-12 Teachers Alliance can help you plan your in-service professional development at no additional cost. Regardless of your school's cell phone policy, the reality in most schools is that students have phones in their pockets, purses, or hoodies.

This week an online article grabbed my attention. Its title read " 94 Percent of High School Students Using Cellphones in Class." I immediately scoped out the heading and thought to myself, "Finally, teachers are beginning to embrace the powerful little gadgets."

Erin Scott A good rule of thumb for any classroom use of cellphones: the lesson/activity must be engaging as well as productive. You don't want technology for the sake of technology (and students aren't going to be intrinsically fascinated with a device they use routinely when they're outside of school).

Here is a great post I thought I would share written by Online Universities. So many ruminations on what smartphone technologies offer the wired classroom begin with some permutation of how, at first, cell phones are often the bane of teachers' existence because they cause disruptions. This isn't one of those ruminations.