In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day.
Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning.
The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes.
I’m leaning the other way on this. Give them tasks to do with their phones. Put the phones to work.
Anything that has a student’s attention is a potential route of engagement. Employing that route is infinitely better than banning it.
“Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either.”
-Marshall McLuhan
Smartphones are not purely entertainment machines. They are super connected, extremely portable computers.
You could connect a Bluetooth keyboard to a phone and use it to take notes.
You could ask the class to search the internet for examples or interesting facts.
There are a lot of ways a teacher can utilize students smartphones in a classroom. Ways that might help students understand technology better in a modern world.
This is why I hate crApple. They turn phones into entertainment machines. And also why I root(pun intended) for non-android Linux phones.
Your comment has nothing to do with the quote I’ve provided. Other than you possibly misunderstanding it.
Heh, you’re right. I misunderstood the meaning of why you posted that quote. Maybe you could add your intentions next time as quotes are often misunderstood and misrepresented. I have a similar issue.
Maybe reread it?
Idk dude. Google it.
Edit: gotta love the angry downvote. 😂
Your quote has nothing to do with the comment provided above it.
Note taking via typing has been shown time and again to result in worse comprehension than manual note taking.
We are not talking about typewriters
That’s a good point. However I would argue it really depends on the individual student. Just because a majority of students might do better with handwritten notes, doesn’t mean we have to take away the ability for a student to type notes. That seems similar to forcing a left handed student to write with their right hand.
I personally feel that taking notes is a distraction to my own learning. And a retain more information if I just watch a lecture intently. I do record / use speech to text to make notes after the fact however.
But let’s go with that idea that students should be taking notes in class. As if they were then they couldn’t be distracted by a smartphone. So maybe a teacher could have a policy of just checking notes.
Perhaps better yet would be a policy of quizzing the students at the end of class? I guess that might depend on how much time is left in a lession though.
School districts where i live have plenty of laptops and chromebooks for these activities.