• Some schools rethink bans on cell phones – Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com

  • Some schools rethink bans on cell phones

    Bans don’t work, so administrators explore using mobile devices to teach

  • More than 100 students were suspended last month at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Conn.

  • They had cell phones.

  • The school’s total ban is at one extreme of a debate under way in schools across the country. As ever more powerful cell phones come closer to mimicking the laptop computers many pupils carry each day, teachers and administrators are wrestling with whether their utility as a teaching tool outweighs the disruptions they can pose in the classroom.

  • “Cell phones aren’t going away,” said Brian Begley, principal of Millard North High School in Omaha, Neb., which loosened its ban at the beginning of the school year in August.

    Pupils can now use their phones during lunch, and, what is more significant, teachers have the discretion to allow them in class, even working them into lessons.

  • By focusing “less on the negative and more on the positive, we feel it can be a real plus for our kids,” said Aaron Bearinger, who teaches business at Millard North, where he crafted a project for his students that involved their calling area businesses from class.

  • 69 percent of American high schools have banned their use or even possession on school grounds, according to figures compiled by CommonSense Media, a nonprofit group that studies children’s use of technology. But those policies don’t work.

  • But the American Association of School Administrators itself argues the other side, promoting the use of cell phones in class as “genuine educational tools.”

    “Handheld devices like cell phones, iPhones, BlackBerrys and iTouch are beginning to offer applications that enhance classroom learning by engaging kids to use tools they are constantly using anyway,” Daniel A. Domenech, the association’s executive director, wrote in an essay last fall.

  • The evidence suggests that the bans, however well-intentioned, don’t work.

    Sixty-five percent of all students who responded to the CommonSense Media Media survey said that they use their phones at school. At schools that ban them, 63 percent use them anyway.

  • The Benenson Strategy Group (the pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign) conducted the survey, interviewing more than 1,000 students in grades 7 to 12, along with more than 1,000 parents. It reported a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points among the student population

  • More than 70 percent of American high schoolers carry a cell phone, Pew reported in June. CommonSense Media found that they send about 440 text messages a week, a quarter of those — more than a hundred a week — while in class.

  • The most advanced devices, like Apple Inc.’s iPhone, are really just slimmed-down versions of full laptop computers, complete with communications and Internet suites, a library’s worth of reference software and GPS location services.

  • Some schools rethink bans on cell phones – Tech and gadgets- msnbc.com

    More than 100 students were suspended last month at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Conn.

    They had cell phones.

    The school’s total ban is at one extreme of a debate under way in schools across the country. As ever more powerful cell phones come closer to mimicking the laptop computers many pupils carry each day, teachers and administrators are wrestling with whether their utility as a teaching tool outweighs the disruptions they can pose in the classroom.

    “Cell phones aren’t going away,” said Brian Begley, principal of Millard North High School in Omaha, Neb., which loosened its ban at the beginning of the school year in August.

    Pupils can now use their phones during lunch, and, what is more significant, teachers have the discretion to allow them in class, even working them into lessons.

    By focusing “less on the negative and more on the positive, we feel it can be a real plus for our kids,” said Aaron Bearinger, who teaches business at Millard North, where he crafted a project for his students that involved their calling area businesses from class.

    69 percent of American high schools have banned their use or even possession on school grounds, according to figures compiled by CommonSense Media, a nonprofit group that studies children’s use of technology. But those policies don’t work.

    But the American Association of School Administrators itself argues the other side, promoting the use of cell phones in class as “genuine educational tools.”

    “Handheld devices like cell phones, iPhones, BlackBerrys and iTouch are beginning to offer applications that enhance classroom learning by engaging kids to use tools they are constantly using anyway,” Daniel A. Domenech, the association’s executive director, wrote in an essay last fall.

    The evidence suggests that the bans, however well-intentioned, don’t work.

    Sixty-five percent of all students who responded to the CommonSense Media Media survey said that they use their phones at school. At schools that ban them, 63 percent use them anyway.

    The Benenson Strategy Group (the pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign) conducted the survey, interviewing more than 1,000 students in grades 7 to 12, along with more than 1,000 parents. It reported a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points among the student population

    More than 70 percent of American high schoolers carry a cell phone, Pew reported in June. CommonSense Media found that they send about 440 text messages a week, a quarter of those — more than a hundred a week — while in class.

    The most advanced devices, like Apple Inc.’s iPhone, are really just slimmed-down versions of full laptop computers, complete with communications and Internet suites, a library’s worth of reference software and GPS location services.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.