Cell Phones in the Classroom

They idea of cell phones in the classroom does not sit well with me. As someone that has worked in a school, it seems that they are more of a hassle than anything. I laughed when I read a line out of the article that said “For example, the teacher can collect the cell phones at the beginning of class and return them to the students when it is time in class to use them”. For starters unless you have little kids I could see this being a big power struggle with your students. Cell phones was one of the biggest problems in the high school I got called into way to many classrooms to collect cell phones that students were using during class.

More times than not it was probably just classroom management problems, for me to have to come get the students cell phones. However I still do not agree with students using the cell phone in class. I did like the line where the author talks about the cell phone being today’s modern “Swiss Army Knife”. With today’s technology the cell phone can just about do anything, yet it still has no use in the classroom.

The one place where I could see it being used is on a field trip like they talked about in the article. This is one area that it could be very useful since not all students have digital cameras but most all have digital cameras on their cell phones. I did like this aspect of cell phones in the classroom, and how they could upload them straight to a class flicker account. This could be a very useful tool for your students to utilize.