New Innovations Show How Mobile Devices Can Be Helpful To Learning... Just Not In Pennsylvania

from the no-progress-in-the-keystone-state dept

Fri, Feb 27th 2009 3:47am — Mike Masnick

While some politicians in Pennsylvania are trying to push a law that would put an outright ban on most portable devices, such as mobile phones, in schools, not too far away, in Washington, DC, this week, there was an entire conference on how such mobile devices were increasingly useful in the classroom to help in the education process. Apparently, some politicians in Pennsylvania would rather block out that opportunity, just because the devices might also be occasionally misused.

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Filed Under: education, mobile devices

23 Comments

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Clouser, 27 Feb 2009 @ 4:03am

Centralized Control
Good find and we appreciate this argument against centralized control in a digital world. A good libertarian perspective! As discussed before the whole education model itself is broken, and the least they could do is introduce some incremental changes to make it better as they are thinking about in the DC case.
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Amos, 27 Feb 2009 @ 4:26am

I say ban them. Cell phones are one of the biggest distractions and they annoy everyone around the user. There is NO reason to have them in schools. I don't want to hear the lame excuse about how there may be an emergency and the parent may need to contact the kid. We didn't need them when I went to school and we don't need them now. The school has landlines you can call if there is an emergency and the student will be notified immediately. Most kids just use them to play games and text each other. Also they are used for cheating on tests by checking google and such. I say ban them.
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- Mike P, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:27am
  
  Re:
  One of the main problem schools face is that a ban on cell phones is very hard to enforce. A friend of mine in the IT field for a school district has a blog that outlines his thoughts on how phones in the classroom isn't so far-fetched. In addition, it sends mixed messages to the kids. Check out his points: http://tannervision.blogspot.com/2009/02/everyone-take-out-your-cell-phones-for.html
  
  I'm not sure how viable cellphones specifically are in the classroom, but banning them and trying to enforce that ban is a very uphill battle.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 11:36am
    
    Re: Re:
    Its quite easy to enforce a ban. Just put in a cell phone scrambler device in each classroom. At least if they sneak one in they cant use it
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:43am
  
  Re:
  "There is NO reason to have them in schools."
  
  From the original article: "...there was an entire conference on how such mobile devices were increasingly useful in the classroom to help in the education process."
  
  Hmm, I don't think that distractions were your only problem in school.
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- kc, 11 Mar 2009 @ 9:05am
  
  Re:
  u r a bum
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Paul (profile), 27 Feb 2009 @ 4:46am

Occasionally misused?
"just because the devices might also be occasionally misused."

I think it's more than likely that they will be highly misused unless they are somehow restricted which would mean most kids are still going to have a regular phone that can do regular texting and stuff. In that situation, I doubt any kid is going to want to have a second phone that they can use just for school stuff.
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duane (profile), 27 Feb 2009 @ 5:23am

Are there kids on your lawn? Would you like them to get off it?
I thought so.

Kids cheated and talked and wasted time long before cell phones were invented and will do so long after cell phones are implanted in our brains at birth.

In my day we passed notes, used sign language and just plain talked behind the teacher's backs. Cheating happened too, and it involved nothing more complex than a little memorization.

If you've got a complaint about cheating and time wasting, why not address the problems and not the technology used t facilitate it?
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- Evil Mike, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:46am
  
  Re: Are there kids on your lawn? Would you like them to get off it?
  Thank you for beating me to that point!
  
  Treat the cause, not the symptoms!!
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John, 27 Feb 2009 @ 5:38am

highly misused
Yeah, let's put cell phones in the same category as cigarettes. Ban student websites, too. They require new management techniques that the old model is just too tired to handle. Frankly, innovation is too darn disruptive for education. We have to teach the basics. Ban electricity. It's made students soft.
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Some IT Guy, 27 Feb 2009 @ 5:47am

I live in Pennsylvania...
Wow, I knew this state was starting to suck (well maybe not compared to New York, New Jersey, or Maryland) but this is ridiculous!

I was in high school in PA at the time of the "cell phone transition" (this is what I call the cell phone boom that happened in 2 years).

I think at first they were banned in school, but then half way through my senior year they lifted the ban and said the phones simply had to be on silent.
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- Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 8:20am
  
  Re: I live in Pennsylvania...
  as long as we don't fall behind jersey we'll be fine!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:02am

Pencil and Paper
The Keystone State should also ban pencil and paper. I've seen plenty of kids using pencil in paper to distract themselves while they should have been listening to the lecture. Remember MASH anyone?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:44am

Why ban ?
Banning them will do no good. Kids will still use them, surreptitiously. And when caught, it will be that more suspicious since they were trying to hide the use. Why not implement a system similar to what prisons are doing in the third world (I am *NOT* suggesting schools are like prison). Due to the high rate of inmates still running their "business" from behind bars, the prisons have implemented cell phone jammers which disallow the use of cell phones in their perimeter.

Additionally, if something were to occur , say a school shooting, part of the response plan could be to turn the jammer off, thus allowing use of the cell phones during an emergency, both for purposes of notifying people of the emergency or as a communication tool for those caught inside. And even put a timer on the jammer, so it turns on 5 minutes prior to first period, and off 5 minutes after last period. This way the school *effectively* enforces the ban, no exceptions, no need to be watching the kids, no unnecessary confrontations because of unauthorized use. A win-win all around.

Just my two cents...
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From PA, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:47am

Ban them from school by state law? No.

Allow teachers to confiscate cell phones that the students are misusing in class? Yes.

If the students can use cell phones responsibly, as in keep it on silent during class, or don't use it when you are supposed to be paying attention, then that is fine. If a student is texting during class, or the ringer goes off and disrupts the class, the teacher should have the ability to confiscate it. Why the need for a law?
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- Chris H. (profile), 27 Feb 2009 @ 7:10am
  
  Re:
  Have you been in a school in the last 10 years? You can't have teachers trying to "confiscate" stuff from kids. What are you going to do if that 17 year-old, 6'2", 220 lb "kid" doesn't want to give it up?
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DCX2, 27 Feb 2009 @ 6:47am

Prohibition never works
Better to "legalize" and regulate. This argument is recycled from the drugs/prostitution argument, that "criminalizing" behavior you don't like isn't going to stop it and usually just makes problems worse.
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Whisk33, 27 Feb 2009 @ 7:43am

Disappointed
Usually your links are much better. When trying to find evidence in how mobile devices can be useful in a classroom instead of examples I read a bunch of people simply saying they can be useful. How many people does it take to say something is true for it to become true? Perhaps a better link next time and your argument of "...politicians in Pennsylvania would rather block out that opportunity, just because the devices might also be occasionally misused." Might have more weight behind it. As is, it's easy to recognize the misuse and more difficult for the benefits.
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CJay (profile), 27 Feb 2009 @ 7:59am

Not going to work for an educational solution
The problem with these efforts to get kids using technology in the classroom like iPods and CellPhones is that the teacher can't control who has which version and if every kid has one... when you pass out textbooks, you know every kid has one. If you want everyone to use their cell phone to text in their answer to the question, what do you do with the kids whose parents don't want him to have a cellphone yet? Or don't want to pay for texting. Education needs technology the teacher can reliably distribute in class, be trained on and understand, and get consistent results.
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ulle, 27 Feb 2009 @ 8:18am

Funny how things change but really don't change, most of these arguments against the phones in school are almost identical to the same arguments I heard when I was in high school back in the 1960's only then it was the pocket calculator that was the evil technology that was ruining the children.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2009 @ 9:49am

National problem, not PA specific
As the title suggests, this is a problem that just *happens* to be being addressed in PA. It's a problem everywhere.

I'm a recent College graduate, with High School immediately prior. I've been there more recently than most of you middle aged guys and gals trying to compare this to passing notes, using calculators, or paper airplanes...

This is a problem. I cannot count the number of times that people with cell phones have been a HUGE disruption and distraction in classes, both high school and college. It is not uncommon for literally a third of the class to be sitting there, ignoring the teacher/professor, texting.

It's not just the people who are actively texting that are hurt by this either, as texting is Never a completely quiet or isolated activity. Often it involves the clicking of keys, the flip noise of certain phones, and the obvious movements of peripheral vision that lead to huge distractions even of the students who are not responsible for the activity. It truly does hurt the classroom environment.

And 'Silent Mode' is not effective whatsoever. If it vibrates, it still makes noise and is just as distinguishable and distracting as if the Simpsons ringtone were going at full volume. And then, of course, regardless of the vibration noise, it is still followed up with the same distracting actions and noises that any other texting involves.

Have you bothered to notice how a very important selling point of most newer phones is becoming their full keyboard and the ease of texting? It's becoming a huge part of many people's lives. Doing this in class, however, hurts not only the person texting, but most of the people anywhere near them.

Even as someone who has, admittedly, spent class time texting....I fully believe it would be in the best interest of the educational community to find a way to end cell phone usage in any classroom setting. The best way, in my opinion, is to remove the cell phones from the classroom so that the temptation is not even there. Any phone found inside of class should be confiscated for the remainder of the day, with multiple offenses leading to additional punishment for violation of school terms, such as detention at the high school level, or university sanctioned educational "modules" (often in the form of a powerpoint presentation and a quiz to follow) at the college level.

I know that we all love our cell phones, but they have no place in a classroom setting. They can be used to cheat, or to distract...but they bring absolutely no positive benefit to the classroom...and even if they did, that benefit would be dwarfed by the level of distraction and annoyance that accompanied it.

In a cost-benefit analysis of cell phone presence in the classroom, phones are an undeniably negative instrument that works against ALL students in a class.

I suppose we should allow PSP's and Nintendo DS's in the classroom as well. They serve the same purpose in the classroom.
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Louis Loeffler, 27 Feb 2009 @ 1:29pm

Banning Phones
Reminds me of the case to Ban Pencils by Doug Johnson

Good issues never die we just ignore the real issue.
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funnybunny, 17 Mar 2012 @ 8:47pm

hi
wow.
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