Cell Phones in the Classroom

Teaching at the kindergarten level has not required specific knowledge of cell phone use in the classroom. In fact, I have not yet encountered a situation in which I’ve had to address the use of cell phones. In order to familiarize myself with my district’s cell phone/technology policy, I searched online for anything that mentioned the use of student technology in the classroom. I found nothing. The only information that I know is that teachers have individual classroom policies. This presents a need for clear, district-wide policies, guidelines, and rules that enable students to use technology in productive and efficient ways.

I am not against the use of cell phones in school but I do see a large need to educate students on the appropriate use. Currently, cell phones have not been widely accepted in education as a result of misuse. This includes students texting during class, passing answers during tests, bullying, or taking and distributing inappropriate photos. As a result, many schools have simply banned them entirely.

Cell phones are part of today’s society. They are not going away! So instead of fighting them, we should be looking at how we could take advantage of students having cell phones for educational purposes. We need to begin by educating our students in the ethical uses of these tools for life-long learning. I think they can be of great education value since they are common and can provide opportunities for accessing the Internet (Googlemaps, Wikipedia), documenting (field trips, experiments, etc. through audio and/or video), blogging, for digital photography, and as a resource for dictionaries and calculators. However, there is a lot that needs to be accomplished before we can start seen the true benefits that current technology has to offer.