So The Debate Continues: Ya or Nay to the Use of Cell Phones in the Classroom



Laura Selby in an article on tecca.com said the following "With great tech innovations come messy real-life dilemmas. Should police officers tweet info about emergency calls, as the Seattle Police department did for a day? Do you find the idea of adding your unborn child to your Facebook profile sweet or unsettling? The debate on what place cell phones should have in schools is no less complex. While some school districts have embraced mobile phone technology, others are struggling to manage the distractions and challenges cell phones bring to the classroom. So what, exactly, are the arguments behind both sides of the debate?" 

This is a very interesting debt across K-12 and higher education settings. Use of cell phones is EVERYWHERE and it becoming increasingly difficult to get students to refrain from using them while in the classroom. In general, the general population no longer follows cell phone etiquette and it quite common to see people answer and/or text during inappropriate times: a meeting, a test, a lecture, or an intimate dinner. 

Sadly, this problem is here to stay and POLICING is definitely not the answer. We should have learned this lesson during the War on Drugs. The only way to combat this issue to educate students on best practices, model them ourselves, and when we do allow students to use cell phones in the class to be sure to that is related to a classroom discussion. 

Personally, I do not police students in regards to cell phones. However, I will call them on it when it becomes a real distraction (such as hearing someone rapidly tapping while sending a text). In the end, there are only three outcomes of a student’s addiction to using their cell phones constantly: there writing will suffer, their ability to wait and/or self-regulate will be diminished, and their grades may or may not suffer (depending on the type of learner they are). 



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