It is a conundrum: we want students to use technology, and yet we ban cell phones.
Indeed, we will bring an antique cart of laptops to a classroom, wait 15 minutes for them to boot, while students sit with instant-internet access phones in their backpacks.
Well, truth be told, the phones are not in their bags. The students have the phones in their laps, sending texts to each other, while waiting for the laptops to boot.
The problem is that students pay more attention to their phones than to their teachers (that would be me). The myth is that in the old days they were locked into everything I said.
I suspect we would be better off by welcoming students' phones, and then teaching the students appropriate use. While they are multi-tasking, maybe we can show them why multi-tasking is a bad idea. Impossible, actually, according to brain researchers. (Watch a video on multi-tasking).
P.S. Open question (meaning, I don't know the answer): Schools are required by federal law to restrict access to certain types of internet access - does this apply to a student's own phone or computer, used on school grounds?
Steve, I understand your point about their having faster/better technology than we can offer them. What do we do about the students who DON'T have a smartphone? At my school it seems to me that this would point out the difference between the haves and the have nots and show that the digital divide is alive and well in the classroom. I can argue either side of this since it doesn't really make sense to me that everyone has to wait on the slow computers we offer them. I see the embarrassment on the faces of kids who have to confess that they don't have a phone, much less a smartphone.
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