Is the glass half full or half empty? Is the phone the most distracting item in the classroom, or the most engaging?
Mobile phones and the secondary classroom are inseparable. It takes a considerable effort and redirection to have students avoid engaging with their phones. Despite best efforts towards engagement with funny pictures in the powerpoint, the phone always wins.
As teachers, we have realized just how engaging, and at times addicting, this item is. After this realization comes the thought- how can I take advantage of this? I have done so by incorporating the use of mobile activities, like Kahoot! or inaturalist (two of my favorites).
However, mobile education may be used as more then just a quick tool to engage the distracted.
For the student, the phone can be used at any time and any place, giving them control of their own learning. It is light for them to take to and from school for learning on the go. Most have them and are familiar with the usage, and quite enjoy using them. Mobile learning tools also allow for personalization. The list goes on…
Is the phone the most distracting item in the classroom, or the most engaging? I say both.
For my role as a French language and literature teacher, the smartphone has become the main correction tool; a bit like the example of the calculator in mathematics, in French, it replaces the heavy and dilapidated paper dictionaries, the grammar books whose pages are smeared or torn, the synonyms guides in short supply to meet the needs of students. I then made it my mission to teach the proper use of the mobile phone as a correction tool, because it is a skill that will be really useful to my students who write more and more, both on social media and to send emails. I’ve also fought with more traditional teachers at my school who wanted to keep the “no phone in class” policy. Fortunately, we often repeat it, but the obligation to teach online during the pandemic has opened the “minds of mobile technology” of many teachers who were initially reluctant. Finally!
I agree the phone can be a huge distraction.
I find the problem to be twofold:
One, the technology companies trying to make money off of mobile applications are heavily invested in the psychology of attention. Things like social media are literally a monetization of peoples’ attention so it pays to know how to trick the human monkey-brain so as to monopolize that attention. How do we as teachers compete with students’ phones in an environment where the competition has all of the resources? (the answer is Grace’s point around banning the phone so there is no competition)
Two, mobile tech is so new that the glacial pace of school change will never catch up (my school board just got us an LMS with a mobile app…in 2018). Many of the technologies causing classroom distraction are so new and so everchanging that school boards (and teaching schools for that matter) are unlikely to pivot in time to tolerate some of these apps, much less to use them for education which is how we arrive at cell phone bans instead of digital citizenship strategies.
At the beginning of my teaching degree Dr. David Jardine opened our class with a lecture that revolved around the fact that we had been “schooled”; that we only knew school through the lens of the school that we had experienced. This idea is one I come back to again and again because as long as we come to a classroom with preconceptions we will struggle with finding the best way to integrate the modern technological paradigm.
After all, in high school my phone had a mono-colour screen and couldn’t send SMS.
Is the phone the most distracting item in the classroom? There is no denying the power and utility of the cell phone in our classroom. We have combined technology to increase information, communication, organisation and individual learning within the palm of our hand.
This has meant that mobile devices have become the tool of choice for a myriad of things. In the classroom, we have extended our learning space virtually and with that the access to many other incredible useful resources that are efficient and accessible. However, what this has equally created is a tool that when used incorrectly detracts more than contributes to one’s learning. Importantly, I think it is less about whether or not a mobile phone is a distracting item, and more about what constitutes distraction vs. engagement. In this way, we are framing the issue around responsible use of cell phones within the classroom. What does this look like? How can we better support cell phone responsibility within our classrooms? These are questions that need answered to better create an environment that supports the advantages of cell phones as well as diminishes the negative aspects of these devices within our classrooms. In short, is the cell phone the most distracting or engaging item in a classroom? I say it depends.
I personally believe that there is a time and place for everything, I have always had a no-phone policy in my classes. Truthfully, a lot of students do not know much about digital citizenship, etc (That is why I teach this in my classes).
Phones are powerful tools but in the classroom, they can do more harm than good! I have seen students pretend like they are using it for educational purposes, but they’re mostly using Snapchat. When it comes to phones, self-control is a big thing and the classroom is one place you don’t want to get distracted. I believe as educators we can find multiple ways to engage our students without even the use of technology. Technology should be a supporting tool for learning, as a society, we are so dependent on it. I do incorporate technology in my classroom but it is usually not always the focus and is mostly used as a supporting tool. Students need a great balance and they can use their phones at home.
One of my daughters came home last week so upset that the teacher took their phones. This was math class and she wanted it for the calculator. I understood her frustration. The task was not computational thinking per se, rather understanding the algorithm used to solve the problem. She needed to know the steps in order to use her basic calculator, so I argue there’s shouldn’t be a problem and it wasn’t a test. As an adult, I need to learn the etiquette of when to use it as tool, and how to not use it in certain situations out of respect for context of where I am. We’ve learned this. I believe that we need to give learners the opportunity to choose how and when to use the devices. Of course, this will take teaching. It’s not about the device being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or a distraction, it’s about teaching the ‘soft skills’ of knowing ones’ behaviour around mobile devices so the learner can practise setting boundaries. What if, at the start of the term the teacher said these are some educational apps/ tools/ sites that will be beneficial to the learning in this course AND here is how we will connect as a class (what’s app or teams… ).
My perspective is, phones aren’t going anywhere. We might as well embrace them and make them useful and engaging in the context of what we are teaching.
Thanks, Katherine or making me think about this! I think it’s something we need to have a stance on.