Cellphones

Yes

point / counterpoint

FROM CLASSROOMS?

BE BANNED

CELL PHONES

SHOULD

I am all for the proper integration of as much technology as possible into our classrooms. I am, however, absolutely, fully, totally against cell phone use as a teaching tool. Cell phones do not have a place in our classrooms as such. Although it would definitely be part of a school board’s discussion onintegrating cell phones into their schools, I’m not going to spend time on the fact that students would use them for purposes other than educational. They already do that, even when they are not being used as a tool. There are plenty of other negatives to focus on. No true best practice has started out with, “Have students bring their cell phones to class.” Parents can find plenty of unnecessary waysto spoil their children. The new LeBron shoe. The latest Justin Timberlake album. Any phone that is worthy of being called an educational tool is not on the “buy one, get one free” plan. You cannot expect students to come to Josh Allen

No

While schools are struggling to finance the newest hardware and software, they are overlooking that many secondary students already own a technology toolthat can be integral not only in school learning, but in the students’ future professional lives. Additionally, schools are often criticized for not connecting learning to the real world. What better way to connect students’ classroom learning with their everyday lives than a tool they already enjoy using? Instead of using the cell phone as social toy, students can learn how to use their phone as atool for knowledge construction. As an alternative to spending time and money creating policies to fight cell phone use in schools, teachers and administrators could spend their time finding useful ways to integrate these devices as knowledge construction, data collection, and collaborative communication tools in order to help students become more competitive in the 21st-century world. Currentlya basic cell phone has the ability to be the stuLiz Kolb dents’ “Swiss Army knife” of

Copyright © 2007, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 1.800.336.5191 (U.S. & Canada) or 1.541.302.3777 (Int’l), iste@iste.org, www.iste.org. All rights reserved.

  Learning & Leading with Technology  |  December/January 2007–08

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school with a Blackberry.If they have a Blackberry… OK, I’ll just stop there, because the discussion on why a parent bought their child a Blackberry is so ridiculous my head may explode. Schools should find that the money they would spend on student cell phones, if they chose that route instead of having students bring their own, would be much better utilized for other technology purchases. Laptops, just to touch on onesmall slice of a district’s technology budget, are much more versatile yet uniform than cell phones. When discussing the money that districts would spend on cell phones, don’t think about just purchasing the phone. You will also be paying for some type of plan that would probably include text messaging and Web access if you were to get the most out of what you have. Any monies spent on phones andplans would be much better served with any technology. Cell phones can be audio recorders, digital video camcorders, still cameras, note-taking devices, calculation devices, scheduling and management tools, phone conferencing devices, Internet researching tools, faxing and scanning devices, blog and Web page editors, or even audio assessment recorders. Cell phones can also be assistivetechnologies for special needs students. For example, using a free Web-based software called Jott, a hearing impaired student can record audio on a cell phone to create text-written e-mails. Furthermore, cell phones can couple with many free Web 2.0 tools such as Flickr for innovative classroom projects. For example, students can use their cell phones to take pictures during a field trip, send them to the...