Mobile phones in schools

[gaz350]

I started to go off on 1, in another thread so thought i would create a new 1

 

I have started a discussion with our students via our vle about mobile phone use. It has amazed me how much they would rather use their mobile phones to do things than pen/paper.

 

I have been getting the general feeling that the kids are getting extremely frustrated by our complete ban on mobile phones (they must be turned off all day). Our school is pretty lucky, 99% of our kids are pretty good kids and great to talk to, if a little arrogant (they would probably get killed in 5 seconds if they went to a city school)

 

Its stupid, phones are becoming mini computers. Why dont we teach them to use them as a Tool instead of a toy to socialise with. After seeing the discussion our Head of Music brought it up with SMT, and the idea got shot down instantly (perhaps his approach was wrong).

 

My idea would be to have sessions in Tutorial, and get the kids to develop the rules + consequences should they abuse the rules. Giving them involvement in the process might make them police the usage between them.

 

Why are Teachers so scared of mobile phones? we already have 140+ laptops in our classrooms that students own and use all the time, so why not mobile phones too?

[jcollings]

I guess the counter argument would be that if students have mobiles out it is hard to tell if they are using them as you'd like or texting their mates.

[daveyboy]

Use mobile phones.......Okay lets give them the ability to shoot a movie clip or record a voice IN THE CLASSROOM on a device that belongs to them.

 

(Note: BELONGs TO THEM)

 

Then maybe - after the horse has long since bolted, you will see how many clips will appear on Youtube and such like.

 

(Note: Video sharing site)

(Think : Do you really believe they will post a great lesson for everyone to share? or do you think they will post movies of said teacher losing their rag?)

 

(Think: Do you really think they will post nice photos of their work? Or a photo of Miss so and so's Cleavege? Legs?)

 

Proof - Well that was at my last school when they had a spate of boys going into the girls toilets and taking a quick shot over the top of the cubicle and then Bluetoothing it around the school.

 

Mobile Phones....... great idea until its your lesson thats been posted / or photos of you.

 

And how long is it going to be before the clever photoshop kid gets hold of the photos, and creates something.........?

[gaz350]

lets ban pens + paper, while the teachers back is turned someone could pass a message to their friends.

 

scissors, someone might stab someone(actually happened here)

 

Knives, as above.

 

These are all tools that can be misused, kids dont take their pens into swimming lessons. because they have learnt it not a place where they need a pen?

 

Edit:

The world is changing if people like it or not. Kids learn alot from their time at school, for example a factory down the road has a bunch of younger workers who have carried on the "happy slapping" culture, taking videos of people taking a dump. Perhaps if they had learnt how to use these things sensibly at school they might not be in the situation now where they have lost their jobs etc etc.

 

Edit again:

would like to also like to add, all these bad points have probably been used before! email, 1:1 computer schemes and even giving kids access to the internet (its a bad world people will misuse anything!). look what happened to these in schools....

Edited March 10, 2008 by gaz350

[Sirbendy]

Scissors are banned here. Phones too. Knives, most certainly. I've even seen a MOST creative bit of "prison engineering" using MDF to make a knife shape in DT, then slotting the end and fitting a pencil sharpener blade into it.

 

As to mobiles..well, if I do a bluetooth sweep with my IPaq, I see lots. We've had lessons videoed and youtubed before...we get the task of requesting removal and tracking culprits. If we're lucky the phones come to us first and I take great pleasure in blanking the things.

 

We've had a few occasions now where some of our..lets see, how to put it..um..less discerning girls have been phone video'd in lewd or similar circumstances, and then the lad/s in question have been bluetoothing it around.

 

One of the girls still can't look at the IT tech staff without going red. Serves them right, too. Phones are a bloody menace though.

[rhyds]

lets ban pens + paper, while the teachers back is turned someone could pass a message to their friends.

 

scissors, someone might stab someone(actually happened here)

 

Knives, as above.

 

These are all tools that can be misused, kids dont take their pens into swimming lessons. because they have learnt it not a place where they need a pen?

 

Edit:

The world is changing if people like it or not. Kids learn alot from their time at school, for example a factory down the road has a bunch of younger workers who have carried on the "happy slapping" culture, taking videos of people taking a dump. Perhaps if they had learnt how to use these things sensibly at school they might not be in the situation now where they have lost their jobs etc etc.

 

 

The prob with phones is that they're not controllable in the same way as PCs. Even if some kind of OS/Add-on could be written for the phones (remembering of course that each manufacturer's phone is different) that would allow GPOs etc to lock them down, at the end of the day what kid would want his shinny new phone locked down all the time? Even if you did persuade some of them to have their phones "doctored" in this way, they would feel agrieved that they'd have to cover the cost of the phone, so another dent in the IT budget.

 

Your comparison with paper messages is flawed in the sense that if a kid wanted to send a message to all his mates, it would take a lot of frantic scribbling and an overarm throwing technique that could land them a place in the West Indies cricket team to do it as fast and (as secretly) as you can with a phone.

[gaz350]

i dont believe out right bans work. you just send things "underground".

 

If kids can get a mobile phone into an exam and use them, whats going to stop them in a classroom?

[contink]

Forget the whole "students" side of things and take the example of companies practices when it comes to restricting access to things like MSN messenger, websites, etc...

 

If companies recognise that their employees will goof off as so called "responsible" adults then what hope have schools got for children using something that could likewise be abused.

 

At the end of the day it's always going to be down to suitable and effective monitoring and consequences for inappropriate use (as well as reward for appropriate usage).

[daveyboy]

 

Edit:

The world is changing if people like it or not. Kids learn alot from their time at school, for example a factory down the road has a bunch of younger workers who have carried on the "happy slapping" culture, taking videos of people taking a dump. Perhaps if they had learnt how to use these things sensibly at school they might not be in the situation now where they have lost their jobs etc etc.

 

 

Lets teach them the dangers of guns. Why don't we allow each child to bring in their own wepons, and then we would'nt have any gun crime because.......

"they had learnt how to use these things sensibly at school"

 

You are right - the world is changing. The question is not "why not?" - the question sould be "How can we use these safely?"

 

But as usual, most people in education think that new technology is good for the classroom. What it really brings is new ways for our students not to do the lesson in front of them.

 

Today, education is about league tables and exam results. We just cannot see that computers are the biggest distraction in the classroom (more time is spent on the web looking for 'a nice picture' for their Powerpoint, or trying to play the online games, updating Bebo or Facebook). and that real T&L is being sacrificed for the latest gadgets.

Edited March 10, 2008 by daveyboy
Quote Tag

[gaz350]

The "How" was kinda where i wanted this to go just forgot to mentioned that

 

example from "student a"

 

i think its a great idea

it would be so much easier to keep up to date with your homework if you were able to use your phone. I always have my phone on me so it would be easier to check which homework is due for the following day.

Also you could set a reminder on your phone to ensure you have time to complete it, which would be an advantage as i often forget to check my homework diary.

 

ok there is nothing stopping them from entering the info at the end of the day. but surely it wouldn't hurt anyone if at the end of the lessons teachers said ok homework for today get your diaries or whatever out and enter your homework which is

 

studentb

Seems a good idea.

Diarys are okay as long as you remember to check them.

But you can set reminders on your phone, meaning that you can make sure you get all your homework done.

Plus, saves the school money, instead of buying diaries, which nobody seems to use that much, they can spend it on something more productive.

Edited March 10, 2008 by gaz350

[srochford]

 

Lets teach them the dangers of guns. Why don't we allow each child to bring in their own wepons, and then we would'nt have any gun crime because.......

"they had learnt how to use these things sensibly at school"

 

Not the same. To the best of my knowledge, there's no way a gun can be used for good in a school so there's no need to allow them in.

 

But as usual, most people in education think that new technology is good for the classroom. What it really brings is new ways for our students not to do the lesson in front of them.

 

I think there's an awful lot of people who don't believe that! For those who do, however, it's important that we educate them about the good and bad things and work to develop "good" use of technology.

 

Outright bans don't appear to work (if they did, there wouldn't be the horror stories of videos on youtube etc). I certainly think that there's scope to experiment - perhaps allowing them in particular lessons but keep sanctions for other lessons and times.

[srochford]

Forget the whole "students" side of things and take the example of companies practices when it comes to restricting access to things like MSN messenger, websites, etc...

 

If companies recognise that their employees will goof off as so called "responsible" adults then what hope have schools got for children using something that could likewise be abused.

 

At the end of the day it's always going to be down to suitable and effective monitoring and consequences for inappropriate use (as well as reward for appropriate usage).

 

There was an article in the Guardian about companies basically not just allowing users to do what they want on their PCs but completely take control of them. It's an interesting idea and even more relevant for the next generation in the workplace.

[flyinghaggis]

I have started a discussion with our students via our vle about mobile phone use. It has amazed me how much they would rather use their mobile phones to do things than pen/paper.

 

What are students going to do on mobile phones that they can't already do given access to school-owned computers/latops and old fashioned pen/paper?

[gaz350]

see my quotes from 1 of my later posts, they were from students.

 

i've stayed out of the discussion other than to try and bring it back on to or split the topic off into new discussions. obviously they can do these things already, but might loose their phones if they do it during school.

Edited March 10, 2008 by gaz350

[jcollings]

lets ban pens + paper, while the teachers back is turned someone could pass a message to their friends.

 

scissors, someone might stab someone(actually happened here)

 

Knives, as above.

 

 

To a point I'm with you but pens etc don't allow the video/pics etc to be shared around the internet instantly. The trouble with all these things is the minority screwing it up for the majority. Eg. Lets unfilter the internet - if we teach kids to use it properly there isn't a problem. Most kids here would use it sensibly but some wouldn't and that's why we ban/legislate.

 

I mean should there have to be a law to stop people drink driving - of course not - most right minded folks would see it as madness to drink and drive but some don't and the law exists to catch them!

 

I could see lots of students here using phones/ipods etc well but I know some won't (it's already happened) so we make rules for the minority thus others suffer. That's how life is.

[mavhc]

In the end it will be possible to have a 1mm camera video your entire day and stream it to youtube, it won't be possible to stop it, so why bother? The only reason people care that they were filmed and published is it's unusual, once there's video of every single person on the planet doing something stupid noone will care.

 

And banning mobile phones for exams just shows how out of date the concept of exams are.

 

People uploading videos of themselves/others breaking the law/AUP means it's easy to track them down and punish them

[rhyds]

...And banning mobile phones for exams just shows how out of date the concept of exams are....

 

How do you arrive at this conclusion? I can't see anything wrong with the concept of being able to benchmark candidates against a given standard, and the phone ban is to ensure that the test is fair and not interrupted.

[beeswax]

Suppose you're on a field trip with some pupils, they're gathering evidence, and they see something which they could use to illustrate their work. I would recommend they use their mobile phones, if they have them, to take a photograph. Our Head of ICT is coming round to the view that mobile phones could be useful tools.

The attached photo was taken last Easter near the Lake District on a Motorola Razr. I used the sepia tint Action in Photoshop to add some "age".

[Domino]

the difference between 1:1 computers, email and all for students and mobile phones for students is that we have control of computer systems.

 

The internet, email, computers etc can all be locked down, Mobile phones cannot.

 

All it takes is a few to find out some kind of mischief they can cause and they'll all find out about it.

 

Personally, I wouldn't suggest it, as its outside of school control - just as i generally don't allow students laptops on the network, I won't allow bluetooth on machines, and i don't allow access to social networking sites (after all, they're a powerful tool if used right too)

[mavhc]

How do you arrive at this conclusion? I can't see anything wrong with the concept of being able to benchmark candidates against a given standard, and the phone ban is to ensure that the test is fair and not interrupted.

 

It's a completely unrealistic test for life, when are they ever going to need to know a set of facts without access to everyone else and the internet? Much better to test reasoning, ability to find information, critical analysis of information etc.

[flyinghaggis]

It's a completely unrealistic test for life, when are they ever going to need to know a set of facts without access to everyone else and the internet? Much better to test reasoning, ability to find information, critical analysis of information etc.

 

Maybe we should make exam tests more like 'who wants to be a Millionaire' gameshow to prepare pupils for their future. Then you could have lifeline's that depend on the mobile phone. Like 'phone a classmate' or 'ask the internet'

 

I'll take a 50/50 on the answer to that question

[richard.thomas]

There's a current plan here to give year 7s a mobile that's capable of browsing our VLE... That's going to be fun! I dont have all the information but I do believe that the phone provider has been working very closely with the school, So possibly there'll be some stuff locked down/limited- Not a clue though.

[TechMonkey]

It's a completely unrealistic test for life, when are they ever going to need to know a set of facts without access to everyone else and the internet? Much better to test reasoning, ability to find information, critical analysis of information etc.

 

I always thought that part of it was having and using the skill set each subject uses. Also some subjects would need these facts to hand and ready. If not completely necesary then desirable as it speeds up the job.

[Sylv3r]

There's a current plan here to give year 7s a mobile that's capable of browsing our VLE... That's going to be fun! I dont have all the information but I do believe that the phone provider has been working very closely with the school, So possibly there'll be some stuff locked down/limited- Not a clue though.

 

Hi Richard

 

Did this ever happen?

 

I have an MFL teacher here who has recently been to a conference which "sold" the idea of the use of a mobile phone in a lesson recording voice / sound clips. I must admit I have thought about this long and hard and don't see the great appeal / benefit. I will post my thoughts here probably tommorrow on the negatives.

 

Feel free to join in on the debate.

[laserblazer]

think we have reached a stage in education where pupils expect to be entertained for the whole of every lesson. If it gets slightly heavy it's "boring" and they turn off. They do not realise that life often can be boring and you have to get stuck in regardless. When things go wrong the ICT Technician won't always be there to put it right. Plus, many teachers see ICT as a soft option to putting together a proper lesson plan.

 

"OK, we'll go into the ICT suite and research xyz and then you can print all of the pretty pictures you have downloaded from Google images in glorious colour. What's that? You pressed print 10 times, never mind you'll have lots of spare copies to practice your origami aeronautics"!

 

Let's try and step away from technology a bit and try some old fashioned teaching. Good manners might be a place to start.

Edited October 17, 2008 by laserblazer