Education

Have math tests that don't require calculators. I have taken science courses (physics, engineering) that banned calculators.

In college I had a Humanities professor who banned the reading of the college newspaper in class. She said if she caught you reading, she'd kick you out of the classroom. 3/4 of the way through the semester, while she was trying to get a slide machine working, a student pulled out a paper. She immediately said, "What did I say about newspapers in my classroom?" His response, "You're not teaching right now, we're waiting for you to figure out the slide machine." "Put the newspaper away or get out of my class." He put his newspaper away.

If my students were in high school, I'd warn them that I'd confiscate their phones if they used them in my classroom and then follow through and keep them until the end of the day. Yes, I'm a hardass, but I'd rather have respect than have a student like me.

Marcelle:

I agree that it's important to decide what you can and cannot tolerate and to be consistent in enforcing that.  That's why I've taken years to come up with a policy that I can live with (and I'm still tweaking it.)  My "no phones ever in sight" policy was taking too much energy; I had to adapt so I wouldn't constantly be in a state of low-boiling irritation.

High school is a bit different.  (Granted, in Quebec, "college" is really just an extension of high school, but the structure is not quite the same.)  Policies need to be sterner and enforcement needs to be consistent between classes.  If a high school has a "no phones" policy and teachers don't enforce it, it undermines the whole disciplinary structure.

Oh, wow. I had hoped we'd see better on a site like this.

Sorry, but my mobile is my computer, my note-taking platform, my reference guide, I often load my books onto it. It is my assistive technology in many ways as well, and you are not taking it away from me because you can not master contemporary classroom management.

All around the world - outside of North America - the modern mobile is being embraced as the greatest tool of education. Imagine, the world's greatest library in the palm of your hand, plus the perfect way to engage with the teacher, with classmates, to make the backchannel an essential part of the learning environment. A word processor - a voice dictation word processor if you'd like - a camera capable of converting text into speech - a GPS device - a calculator. Yes, what might any of that have to do with making school work for most students?

So, here are my mobile phone rules:

(1) Keep it out, on your desk. That way, if you've forgotten to silence the ring, we're not waiting for you to find it in your backpack.

(2) If you need to talk, go outside. No big deal.

(3) Have it on all the time - we'll be using it - polleverywhere, todaysmeet, SMS questions to people out of the classroom, sharing links, putting important notes in our calendars.

And with those simple rules, and engaged teaching - "look that up, would you?" "please share that?" "can you text your friend and ask?" "really? everyone knows? everyone text three friends and ask them." We have no problems.

The phone of today is the essential learning and communication "container" (to use Alan November's term). If we are not using it in schools, if we are not teaching best mobile practices to our students, we are failing them.

It is that simple.

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2007/12/dont-hang-up-on-your-students-futures.html

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/04/technology-and-equity.html

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/11/bringing-back-channel-forward.html

http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/

Siobhan,

Why do your rights as a teacher trample mine as a student? Why must I function with the media and tools which make you happy? And why would you, as a teacher, refuse to help me learn the information and communication tools which I will use for the rest of my life?

These are the key questions - which we've touched on in your previous posts. Who controls the learning process? Should it be you - the representation of the state and the economic system? Or the student?

None of this is new. Socrates and Diogenes opposed literacy and writing on the same grounds you oppose phones - they disrupt the learning environment - the cognitive authority environment - preferred by the teacher. Monks opposed Gutenberg technology on similar grounds. Schools long fought the use of film and television, even typewriters. Today, educators continue to fight against utilizing the technologies of communication which define our age. An endless retrograde action which ensures that "ability" and "disability" remain traditionally defined and that power never changes hands.

I'm not a believer in constant progress, but I do know that Gutenberg-era technologies left most people "outside." Your preferred methods are difficult for most people. Only by allowing students to choose their own "containers" do we have any hope of expanding the universe of educational "winners."

Where to start?  God forbid that we might 'undermine the disciplinary structure.'  Maybe if we understood more about the culture of the students?  Naaah!

I work as an assistive technology generalist in K12.  I teach my students to advocate for themselves, their tools, and their own learning.  If one of my students takes your class, and you try to take away their voice, or their sight, or their memory, or their reading ability - I know who will 'win.'

Respectfully, please get over the power struggle and go back to what you hopefully intended when you got into teaching: facilitating learning for your students.

John:

Is taking away a student's voice the same as asking him not to talk while others are talking?  Is taking away a student's reading ability the same as asking him not to read a comic book while he should be participating in a group project?  Asking a student to stop showing pictures of her dog around on her cell phone is very different from taking away a fundamental skill.

Different question.  I absolutely agree that you can ask people to not abuse their abilities, and that you can kick them out of your class if they do.  One of my favorite (fictional) IEP goals is "___ will be sent to the vice-principal's office for using inappropriate language on his/her augmentative communication device."

This is different from what you and others were saying, which is that you would take away or forbid the device or tool (which facilitates the ability).  And if I have an 'invisible' learning disability, I may not want to have to justify my use of my tool to you.  I sit in your class ready to participate, like anyone else, with all my tools.  Maybe I have a few more tools than some others, but none of us are naked, and some of us wear glasses and have hearing aids.

John/Ira,

So what you are espousing is that the world bend to the student? That the teacher, with all their knowledge and experience, knows less about what a student will need to learn what the teacher knows? Sounds arrogant to me. You make it sound as if no learning can take place if the student can't have their mobile. What did students in America do before 2005?

Sorry, but your phone isn't going to make you a better student. Da Vinci didn't use a mobile. Neither did Gates or Jobs. Phones, right now, are social tools, not learning tools. The number one app on the iPhone is iFart. In fact, the top 10 apps have nothing to do with school, but focus on chatting, music, games, photos, etc.

Having been to schools in London and America, and having lived in Asia as well, I guarantee you that students use their phones a lot less than American kids. For one, it was expensive - I didn't know anyone who had unlimited texting in 2005. In fact, my friends in Italy, Norway, England, Spain, and Japan still don't have unlimited texting and are very judicial with their phone use. They don't use them in the classroom - it's not tolerated. Teachers aren't interested in checking with the internet for facts, they like to use their memory/minds.

John,

sorry, my reply crossed with yours, and I see now that you are arguing something different.

I don't have a problem with students using tools to help them when they are at a disadvantage. But I do think the student needs to explain what the tool is for to the teacher at least.

Let me go back to the start. What if I said - because this is absolutely true for me, "Pencils baffle me.  I don't own one.  I recognize that they have practical uses, but their ubiquity in the classroom is one thing that almost drove me to quit school a few years ago."

It is true. I can not use pencils for anything but entertainment. I draw pictures with them. I can not form recognizable or useful letters or numbers with them unless I am copying as if I was drawing. And the only significant impact a pencil has had for me in the classroom was back when I was eight-years-old and a classmate (let's call him "Liam") stabbed me with a pencil. The chunk of graphite remains in my hand.

But funny thing, the teacher, back when I was eight, did not ban pencils from the room. And despite many situations in which I have seen pencils, pens, books, and paper used for "non-academic" things in classrooms, Siobhan has not banned any of those technologies.

She hasn't banned them because she has "naturalized" the technologies most comfortable for her. She thinks books and pencils grow on trees - are part of her natural environment. So she expects schools to teach the proper use of those "natural" things.

Anything created after Siobhan's birth - and anything not "native" to her world - she perceives as "technology." It should not be taught, and it should not be used.

OK, yes, I am being cruel, but these are, essentially the facts of this debate.

Because Siobhan wants me to explain to her that I suffer from some sort of pathological disease, and then she will let me use my preferred technology. But what if I demanded that she justify why she would need a "dangerous" (stabby-thing) pencil when perfectly safe smartphones were available? But what if I insisted that she prove her "disability" in order to be allowed to use paper - a technology which has destroyed much of Canada's forest? And what if I only taught smartphones in primary school, and refused to allow her to read ink-on-paper books for environmental reasons - well then perhaps no one at age 17 would come up to a teacher and say they needed a "pencil for learning purposes." And we'd presume that her possession of a pencil was for unrelated drawing, perhaps on the desk or wall.

You see, the divide here remains about power. In order to be different in Siobhan's classroom one must declare oneself sick - different - beyond the mainstream. They will be marked that way permanently, and daily, because they will then be granted the "medical aides" needed to act "as normal" (as like Siobhan) as possible.

Now, Marcelle (above) and I have clearly seen different schools in Europe, where, in my visits, handheld learning initiatives are way ahead of those in the US, and - in the UK for example - these "disruptive technologies" are now part of even the primary curriculum. But here is what I have seen - when these technologies are routinely available by student choice (Universal Design in the US, Inclusion in Europe), the divides of class and ability weaken, students tend to adopt their "best strategies," and a higher percentage of students succeed. The blog links I provided above connect you to a few of these studies.

But something else happens when students are connected. The power of the teacher as "know it all" also diminishes. Students suddenly have the tools of challenge in their hand - assuming you are a confident enough teacher to teach them how to use those tools. With these connections you can actually build a learning community, rather than the lecture hall Marcel prefers.

Anyway, yes, education changes slowly. The chalkboard was introduced to US education at West Point around the time of the war of 1812. It was still a "dangerous innovation" for public schools in the 1840s when people had to write long books explaining to teachers how they might use this radical new communication system.

But eventually, it caught on. I bet that now even Siobhan has one in her classroom.

Just so you can read up on Chalk Boards

http://books.google.com/books?id=VO1m6abELKYC&dq=william+alcott+black+board&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=7aiq7TuyfB&sig=qliLuaxlu_jXV3oDuzG851vgEzo&hl=en&ei=j6doSp0YlLAwrq-tpws&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

It's not that I don't think many of you have excellent points here, but I also don't believe that they are all-encompassing.

Ira, you say, "Anything created after Siobhan's birth - and anything not "native" to her world - she perceives as "technology." It should not be taught, and it should not be used."  I have said no such thing.  I absolutely believe that various "technologies" should be taught and used.  Not necessarily in my class, though, unless they are necessary to the work we are doing.

Let's try looking at it from a different angle. 

You sign up for a P.E. class.  You are asked to show up in exercise clothes and to use a badminton racket to play badminton.  Instead, you show up in stilettos and sit down on the gym floor to read a book about badminton.

Does the instructor have the right to insist that you show up in the clothes he has designated and that you use the tools he thinks are best?  Or should he accommodate himself to your insistence that you learn about badminton best by reading about it?

Now, if a Muslim woman comes to me and says that her religious convictions prevent her from showing her arms and legs, I am clearly going to make accomodations.  But generally speaking, experience and study has suggested to me that a certain kind of tool is best for this exercise.  If many students come to me and tell me that they are much more comfortable playing badminton with a tennis racket, I will start to consider adapting my approach.

Clearly, a pair of shorts or a racket are not a cell phone, but neither is a pencil.  As is explained, there are all sorts of other off-task behaviors that I ask my students not to engage in - if a student is drawing pictures alone in a corner with a pencil instead of participating in a group assignment, I'm going to ask him to explain himself.  If he explains that he is drawing out his ideas in order to better organize them, then that will give me something to consider.

The bottom line for me is that teachers are both responsible and accountable for their classroom policies, and choosing the methods that they think will best help students learn.  This is not to suggest that these policies cannot evolve, or that they shouldn't be accomodating, but teachers are entitled to enforce them if they think they are what works best.  Students are also entitled to disagree, and discussion of policies is always a good idea if there is disagreement.  But in my experience, when I ask a student whether he is using his cell phone for anything useful right now, his response is, "No, sorry miss."  And he puts the phone away, because he knows that, at this moment, he doesn't need it.

Yes, teachers' policies are always influenced by personal experience and prejudices.  If the teacher is not open to discuss these influences, then that is cause for concern.

Siobhan,

Your choice of analogy made me smile. Many years ago the very large secondary school I attended faced these issues. Should students continue to be required to wear specific [purple and white] gym uniforms? Should they be required to wear specific kinds of shoes? Should they be required - even - to participate in specific physical education activities?

Gym attendance was abysmal, and many students actually were flunking the courses.

So they said, "wear what's comfortable as long as your shoes don't damage anything." And they said, "during every period there's basketball, volleyball, running, the pool, wrestling, weight-training, tennis, football, soccer, lacrosse, gymnastics - pick one and go it." Because, obviously, the point of secondary physical education is physical activity, so you make it work for many students. Attendance leapt, and failure almost vanished.

Now, if I thought you - or most any teacher was trained to - or really capable of - "choosing the methods that they think will best help [individual] students learn" without the strong input of that student, I might accept your argument. But there are damned few licensed psychiatrists with specialisation in learning brain function and access to fMRI diagnostic equipment working in classrooms. And even if there were...

Because you'd need time as well. Right now you are not making that decision at all - you are adapting what is best for yourself. I don't know what you do - but I poll my students at the beginning of the semester regarding how they read, how they write, how they absorb information best, how they like to interact, what their favorite study times and days are - but I still do not presume to "know" - and I do not average those human experiences and come up with a group strategy. I let students make their own decisions. If they are having trouble doing that, I offer help. But I know enough about learning to know that the great learners use differing methods for differing tasks - and I don't make rules which inhibit that.

But it is funny, you can not yet see that the mobile phone on one hand and paper and pencil on the other are not just two different technological solutions to the same problem? How to record information, how to transmit it? Both are just tools, and as humans, we choose tools which do what we need them to do.

Because, if you are right, then I have an absolute right to forbid pen and paper notetaking in my classroom. And I can prohibit my students from printing out the documents I send them digitally - forcing them to read online. My course is required for graduation in the major. I'm the one who teaches it - so, are my rules all right with you?

Would those rules be all right even if I gave exemptions based in proven medical necessity?

Ira,

I have been a teacher for 20 years. I do not tolerate the use of cell phones in my classroom. I teach English as a Second Language. The atmosphere in my classroom is warm and inviting. It is crucial that my students be able to engage fully with me and the other students in order to master a second language. Distractions such as cell phones have no place and would inhibit their ability to learn. You yourself say that it is important for students to be connected and the role of teacher as know-it-all be diminished. I totally agree. I don't see how cell phones play a role in this. My favourite moments in my classroom are when I'm not talking anymore and my students' voices have taken over (as long as they're speaking English.)

You made a pretty ridiculous statement when you said that Siobhan believes that "'technology' ...should not be taught, and it should not be used." A teacher, like me, who prohibits cell phone use in the classroom is not necessarily against using all forms of technology. I often use the computer and other devices to listen to audio clips and watch movies and documentaires to provoke discussion or share a laugh or two. I use the internet outside of the classroom to keep in touch with my students as well. But in the classroom, I ask that their attention be focussed on the content of my lesson, their own learning and their interaction with the other members present in the classroom. Is that really too much to ask?

 I also use the blackboard extensively. I adore blackboards. They are very user-friendly. And pencils and paper. Very sexy.

I also believe that if a teacher chooses to never use electronic technology of any kind, that's fine too.

MK

MK,

I don't care what the teacher prefers. The teacher is not the focus of the classroom, the student is. You may think blackboards and pencils and paper are very sexy - and I applaud you for embracing the best educational technology of 1840 - but I learn differently - and I have rights too.

So, it may help me a great deal - in an ELL classroom, to record what you say so I can practice, or to type out notes (and I type far more efficiently on a phone than on a computer), or to listen to a radio station in my target language, or to have instant translation tools. Whether it helps you - whether you even think it inhibits my ability to learn, really isn't the question. The question is - does it work for me as a student?

You make a lot of assumptions. You assume that you know how each individual in your room learns best. You assume that someone is attending to your lesson because they are staring at you. These are the Calvinist assumptions which lie behind the design of North American schools. And the results, year in and year out, is an appalling failure rate.

I can see that you view your role as an entertainer. You have a scripted presentation with humor, with re-inforcement, with highlights, even with audience interaction. But how much of your class is student-created-content within student-created-context?

Because this goes far beyond technology - it is all about who holds the power in the classroom.

When I was starting my career, something one of my first supervisors said in a meeting has stuck with me and proven very helpful many times in difficult moments. He said, "Never ever forget that YOU are the master in your classroom." He didn't mean be a dictator; I think he was trying to boost our confidence as ew teachers. Anyway, it worked for me. I wish I could say he inspired me in other ways too. He was pretty inconsiderate most of the time, except for that one meeting. 

Hi Siobhan by the way!

MK,

Sounds like he was inconsiderate then as well, just to the students. These terms come from that Prussian State Model and the Calvinist Sunday School Model, they don't belong in places where we are trying to build learning communities.

"So, it may help me a great deal... to listen to a radio station in my target language, or to have instant translation tools."

Listen to a radio station in the target language! Give me a break! None of my students would ever do that in class. They would listen to anything but something in the target language. You made me laugh outloud.

As for the instant translation tool-they each have one: it's called a dictionary.

"I can see that you view your role as an entertainer. You have a scripted presentation with humor, with re-inforcement, with highlights, even with audience interaction." Who's making the assumptions now?

"But how much of your class is student-created-content within student-created-context?" A lot.

As for failure rates, almost all my students pass my courses.

It seems you are advocating doing away with writing anything out by hand altogether. I believe education is about providing students with the ability to use and learn as many skills as possible, including the skill of writing things down by hand. I don't care if blackboards were invented in 1840 or earlier. The wheel was invented in 3500 BC. Should we do away with wheels too?

And finally..."it is all about who holds the power in the classroom." What power? I lay out the rules and guidelines and more or less plan what's going to go on and what my expectations are in terms of the students' language learning. All of this is very clearly indicated to my students and adjusted weekly according to my students' needs. They know what they have to do "to pass." More importantly, they end up LEARNING a hell of a lot despite themselves. There is no power struggle. We have a reciprocal agreement.

Have a nice day.

MK

Hi Burt,

"It seems to me that, as an ESL teacher, using phones could be a wonderful tool for your students to use." (There is a dangling adverbial in your sentence but I'll let it go. ;)) (It should be 'It seems to me that, as YOU ARE an ESL teacher...) 

First of all, not all my students own cell phones so using them as a teachiing tool would only create a division in the classroom. Second of all, my students' ages range from 17 to 19. They are just entering adulthood and some have very limited social skills. They mostly come from rural areas as well; most are farmers. (Am I being politically incorrect by implying rural people sometimes have a tendency to have limited social skills? Perhaps another discussion could ensue on this topic.) They do not have a chance to engage in "adult-type" conversations often. I give them the opportunity to develop these skills and have discussions about some of the most pressing issues of the day: birth control, sexism on farms, pesticides, organic vs conventional agriculture,  breastfeeding, the WTO, suicide, politics, religion...not to mention hockey and beer....they name it, we discuss it.

So what's my point? Developing the use of cell phones as a teaching tool is not a priority for me at this point. 

That's all for now. Thanks for the interesting debate.

The educational context here in Quebec must be very different from in the US: there's a lot of 'peace and love' in the pedagogical approach here already. And a lot fewer guns at large. 

I'm one of the most radical teachers I know in terms of giving students a voice and making them the focus and yet I'm all for bringing back a certain amount of discipline. Or maybe it's simply good manners that I miss.

"Not necessarily in my class, though, unless they are necessary to the work we are doing."

Literacy by definition is about using communications tools.  If you are not using today's literacy tools, you are not teaching using current literacy - you are teaching using an historical artifact.

We don't get to vote on whether or not cell phones are the current literacy tool; the vote has already been taken and cell phones have won the election.  It is now our duty as teachers to teach our students to use and be fluent with the literacy of their lives.

We as teachers need to become advocates for our student's right to have the latest literacy tools.  When I was a child, teachers wanted me to be able to read books, magazines, newspapers.  Teachers advocated for my right to have as much access to books, magazines and newspapers as was possible. Today's literacy tool is the cell phone.

Text messaging costs telecom carries zero, nada, nothing.  Every student should have a cell phone with an account to make emergency calls, be able to call a limited number of people, and have unlimited access to text messaging.  The first telecom carrier to adopt this model will actually make money because their market share will soar; they will be able to tie up custormers for life like Meteor is now attempting to do in Ireland by offering free text messaging for life.

A basic cell account would cost the provider about $30.00 in today's market (that cost will be dropping, too.)  Most schools spend way more than that on consumables for students evry year.  With a cell phone account for every student they also get a calculator, an encyclopedia, a wordprocessor, a classroom clicker, and all of the new apps that are being released daily, not to mention a way to call home and a way for teachers to send a group text to all of their students any time they want. Just think, I wouldn't have my class interrupted by a call on the overhead speaker from the office just after they settled to hear a story-I could get a discreet text from a group member (the principal) with a special notification that tells me the principal wants me to stop in on my prep or that Sean needs to go to the nurse.

Dan, Ira and others,

The original letter is not asking whether cell phones and the technology that comes with them could become interesting teaching tools. I'm sure they can.

The letter writer is concerned about students using their cell phones for personal reasons during classtime, including during exams. I think her concerns are justified and Siobhan provided an appropriate and thoughtful response.

By the way, cell phones have not won the election in my area. Students who own cellphones are still a minority in my school.

I go outside for a couple of hours to fix the tractor and look what happens!  This discussion is pretty fascinating, and useful, especially for someone (like me) who is trying to get some idea of what education is going to look like next year and next decade.  I'm in K12, but I also have projects for staff continuing education - so how adult professionals learn is also a focus for me. 

Look at ourselves, all of us here (and our gracious host Siobhan) as a little ad hoc learning community. I think we all can agree that accomodations are allowed.  This may seem like a slam-dunk, but it isn't - in my district, I have had to do several in-service trainings for teachers who just don't get it that (for example) "Brandon" is never going to write out the long division - he is going to explain how division works and then he is going to use his calculator for the rest of the year.

Where it gets fuzzy and argumentative is where each of us is drawing the line on accommodations.  If we were to graph all of us as points in an n-dimensional skill space, we'd have a point cloud and some outliers (I'm looking at you, Ira Socol).  Take away our tools and we'd have even more outliers, in different places (and we'd be mad).  You can't just draw a line (OK, a n-1 dimensional plane) and say that everybody on one side of the line gets special accommodations.  Ira Socol's Toolbelt framework, which he wrote about here at change.org and also on his own blog, is familiar to those of us in Special Ed, but maybe not to the rest of you.  The point I want to emphasize, and this is based on Gregory Bateson's blind man/cane analogy http://kestrell.livejournal.com/162420.html?thread=306292y  and on recent neurological studies, is that our tools are part of us, and we are not all the same  As Ira was "pointing out" with the pointy pencil analogy, it doesn't make sense to demonize some tools and mandate others.

By all means, require politeness and consideration for others in behavior, whether using tools or not.  But that is common to all environments.

If we K12 people are doing our job, our students are going to be the experts in how they learn best, by the time they go to college.  They will also know the etiquette of using their tools responsibly and respectfully (even though they may not choose to).  If they don't, please, toss them out, like you would any other college student who disrupts class.  But as long as they are contributing members of the class, and not bothering anyone else, please let them use the tools they know work best for them.

The choice to actually use tools (like laptops, or smartphones) as part of the curriculum is, I think, a different issue altogether, and it might clarify this discussion to separate that out.  I think it would be useful for the students to learn the same way that we here are learning, but I agree with Siobhan here, that's a teacher choice.

Oh, and I agree with those who made the point that some of these arguments seem to be about maintaining control in the classroom.  Really shouldn't be an issue, as long as it isn't a gatekeeper class.

Thanks John, and I don't doubt that I'm an outlier in US ed (I've often wished I had an "Outlier" T-shirt to wear around our College of Ed), but as in most arguments, our points of origin define our places. I come from a Special Ed background - not as a teacher - as a student. I come from a group of school "failures." And I've spent most of this decade working with the "failures" in education - the homeless and those walking into Vocational Rehabilitation.

And I'm one of those kids who hated school, who found the classroom experience both humiliating and suffocating - hell, I've written a novel about that. My perspective - based in my experience - is indeed different.

But Dan's point is crucial. Sorry MK and others, the mobile has won. There are more than 3 billion active mobile phone accounts on Earth today - they are the essential communication and information tool of both American business and the global rural poor. And we will not teach students how to use these devices well, effectively, efficiently, and/or politely by refusing to deal with them, or, in Siobhan's case, to even learn about them.

One of the things I see in my VR work and research is that MK's kids can not pursue jobs or post-secondary ed because they come unable to use emails or text-messaging or the internet properly. They can not even look up what they need to know. They surely can not use the Assistive Technologies within computers and mobiles to support their learning or communication. And my state, at least, does not have the resources at the VR level to make up for 12 years of lost schooling. We try, but it is, essentially, impossible.

I also sense a willful disregard for student's time and cognitive effort in MK's responses. If I am helping someone read, I would rather the definition or translation be a right-click away because I can hold the student's attention on the text in question. I'd rather they focus on what matters - their learning - then on the mechanics of antique technologies.

But mostly, I'm baffled. Siobhan and MK seem absolutely confident in their ability to keep books, pens, pencils, and papers under their control in their classroom. But they can not imagine how to do the same with 21st Century tools. Are they that afraid of the tools? MK can not imagine telling students what to listen to. Siobhan can not conceive of how to control what they write on their phones. I suppose it is simply fear of the unknown.

Anyway, here's the thing: No study anywhere has shown that reading ink-on-paper, listening to lectures, or writing by hand are "best practices" in education. There is simply no evidence of this, while there is plenty of evidence that those educational technologies limit success more than contemporary technologies. I tried to begin this conversation by including blog links to actual studies. Here are some more -

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/03/cal-2009-access-to-university-success.html

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-praise-of-distraction.html

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/04/humiliation-and-modern-professor.html

Michael,

You wrote "MK, I suspect that you do an excellent job of teaching your students English. I also suspect that you do a lousy job of teaching your students how to learn English on their own."

Thanks. I suspect you make a lot of judgemental statements about people you've never met. I don't own a fishing rod but if I did I would certainly know what to do with it. And so would my students.

Ira,

You wrote: "MK's kids can not (sic) pursue jobs or post-secondary ed because they come unable to use emails or text-messaging or the internet properly." What? They can't? Are you talking about the students I teach? How do you know what they are or are not capable of doing?

And you "sense a willful disregard for student's time and cognitive effort in MK's responses."  Because my students use dictionaries in the clasroom? You say you would "rather they focus on what matters - their learning - then on the mechanics of antique technologies." You mean the mechanics of turning pages of a dictionary? Is turning pages so strenuous an activity that it would take all the focus away from what they're learning? What if what they're supposed to be learning is, in fact, how to look up words in a dictionary?You know, alphabetical order and all that.* And when did I say that I could not imagine keeping 21st century tools under my control? (whatever thay means...) I have already said I am open to the idea of using cell phones and other technologies as teaching tools. But that's not what the original letter was asking about...

*Anecdote: I once spent 3 months in a remote village in Peru. No electricity. No TV. No phone. I became fluent in Spanish by interacting with people and by reading my Spanish-English dictionary in my spare time.

John,

You gotta love a guy who can discuss n-1 dimensional planes so eloquently. Thanks for your open-minded, non judgemental response. But again, you refer to the phones in question as learning tools. No one is saying that they're against using phones as learning tools...I think, and I repeat, some teachers are bothered by students who are using these technologies for personal reasons in the classroom...

Gotta go.

Again, thanks to all for all of this. Tomorrow I will do some research on what the heck the Sudbury model is. I live in a foreign country after all and spend 90% of my time at work speaking French...when I'm not teaching, that is. Bonne nuit!

Melanie,

"But again, you refer to the phones in question as learning tools. No one is saying that they're against using phones as learning tools...I think, and I repeat, some teachers are bothered by students who are using these technologies for personal reasons in the classroom..."

It seams to me that you consider "phone as a learning tool" and "proper use of phones" as two separate issues that are tackled separately.

I'd say that these issues are inseparable and by choosing not too use phones in class you are just ignoring the "proper use" part. Just by banning phones you loose the opportunity to actually influence the way students use them. Yes, using phones for personal reasons in classroom (or in other situations) can be irritating, but by curing the symptom (banning the use) you are not treating the cause.

Thank you all so much for your contributions to this discussion.  I'm always amazed by the passion this topic arouses, and there is obviously a lot to ponder here.

I find it ironic that many of the respondants above who are so vehemently advocating the use of cellular phone and other types of technology as tools for teaching communication skills show a lack of understanding themselves of how to word things constructively in an internet forum and, instead, resort to making accusations, using condecension, launching personal attacks and passing judgement when trying to prove their points. Modelling appropriate behaviour is one of the fundamental practices of being a successful teacher/educator. As a student in the world of internet communication, I see I will have to go elsewhere to find appropriate models for this type of communication. I ventured tentatively out into this new medium thinking I might find understanding and compassion. Instead, I was accused, judged, and found guilty of numerous educational faux-pas and faulty thinking by a bunch of so-called educational professionals who seem to be claiming to be experts on the use of technology as a communication tool. If this is the way you use technology to communicate, then count me out. I am prepared to disagree and be disagreed with; I am not prepared to listen to personal attacks, condescension and sweeping statements being made about my teaching methods by complete strangers.

You have, however, taught me a thing or two. One: I will keep my guard up, way up, the next time I post on this forum or any other. Two: posts that are disrespectful, condescending, judgemental etc. will not receive my attention.

Yours truly,

MK

I shouldn't say anything more, but Melanie's farewell above requires an answer on discourse in education.

Many of us here - including Melanie - came brining personal observation to the conversation as if it were generalizable research. I tried to bring other research in as well, but if you read through the posts above, you will see that this - the personal experience as context for debate - dominates.

When one does this, when one presents, essentially, themselves as their research, attacks on that research will feel personal. Even a basic statement regarding the limitations of anecdote will stung as a personal challenge.

When this happens it is easy to get angry at the medium in which the attack occurs, from "I'm not coming to this conference again," to a student's "I'm not speaking up in class again."

So, I am not surprised at Melanie's feelings, and yet, I wonder how someone bringing those feelings to a class discussion can truly prepare students for the contemporary marketplace of ideas.

One thing I have learned, both through "book research" and online experience is that the methods of establishing cognitive authority today are very different from the methods 20-years-ago. Today, you bring your game to the conversation, you prove the value of your theses, you respond effectively, you demonstrate learning along the way. A second thing I've learned is not to get mad, but to pursue relationships. One of my best academic online friends is a professor who I met by sloppily insulting him on my blog. For 48 hours we fought a blistering email battle, but neither of us backed away, and we emerged respecting each other - and respecting both our commonalities and differences.

So I think that if forums like this cause you fear, you might try recognising that this is entirely internal in formation. No one here is a danger to you, and ideas are things of argument - impassioned argument when we are discussing the lives of children.

Of course you might try simply discussing third person information - so doubts regarding data seem less personal - but in my experience, whatever your research is - it hurts when it is questioned.

Dear Siobhan, I like you teach in a community college or junior college.  It is the school's and my personal rule that cell phones be turned off during lecture and exam time, unless set to vibrate.  Then they may quitely exit the class to take their call.  It is a distraction to the other students in the class who have paid hard earned money to listen and participate in my computer related classes.  It has also been shown that students will text each other in the class and outside the class to get answers during test time.  I halt class and ask the student to leave if they can't abide by social rules set up for their classes.

David - Adjunct Professor

It's a painful misconception that just because there may be no rule against using cell phones in a classroom that there are no rules of conduct and rewards for good conduct, no culture of consideration and uncomfortable moments of overt rudeness, and no penalties for insult or obtuse ignorance. Quite the opposite. Yet those penalties and rewards are by the community, not by an arbitrary martinet, nor by institutional fiat. And those guidelines have far more impact, far more significance, and much greater compliance than any written or behavioral proscriptions.

The heart of this kind of teaching is reinforcing the teaching and learning of life, most often through what students do with - and not to - each other. That kind of a culture is so thoroughly antithetic to the kind of bureaucratic nastiness of second and third rate over-age nursery school teachers that it's inconceivable - to me at least - that anyone would ever choose to hide behind rules and proscriptions.

Of course it's also inconceivable to me that people have skin so thin they fear controversy, or behavior so childish that they'd not respond if they believed - and had any data beyond the end of their nose - in their position. Ah well, the thing that makes this all so remarkable is that this is Change.org, and a program of the Obama campaign. Were this some reactionary blog, I might expect it. Perhaps we must reconsider our support of the President. 

Unless I missed something, and I might have, many of these comments are about cell phone use in college classes.  Hey, you pay to go there, how you use or waste your time is of little concern.  Hopefully by that time, you know to use your time and technology wisely.  But what about texting in elementary schools?  High schools?  These kids are NOT using their phones for classwork.  They are texting their friends, and sometimes cheating on tests.  Just because these phones are portable, there is no reason to allow them in the classroom. 

This discussion is not even close to being over.  The question is - what really is the issue?  Ira has helped immensely by framing the discourse by the kinds of research we bring. 

Another way might be to determine what we're trying to accomplish and who we want to serve.

Determining the actual market penetration of cell phones by demographics is fairly simple.  Send me your postal code and I can give you a reasonably accurate number.  (I have doubts about the the accuracy of MK's assertion.)  This is not a theoretically issue; it's a matter of fact like the amount of sunlight at any given point on the earth.  We can maeasure these kinds of things today much more accurately than the builders of New Grange were able to do 5,000 years ago, even though they were actually quite sophisticated.

The tools we use define our culture.  In which culture are we preparing our students to thrive?

David, Heidi.

I remain confused. You have mobile phones in your classroom for the same reason you have pencils, pens, books - these are information and communication devices which people use. All can be used appropriately in any classroom (I've provided enough links above if anyone wants to follow research), all can be used inappropriately (we spent the day on Twitter collecting stabby-pencil horror stories, we all have them). But these are tools, and the mobile phone is the dominant tool in this regard of this century.

Both of you - and Siobhan, and Melanie - want to enforce your conception of communications technology - you are not enforcing behavior. I suppose (again) that I could do this as well. I could ban paper from my classroom, and pens and pencils and books. I stop prohibit students from printing out the course documents I send them digitally. This would enforce 21st Century technology. Or I could go the other way, Enforcing 2500 BC technology, requiring that students make their own papyrus paper and leaf-based ink. But all of these prohibitions are not just ridiculous, they are discriminatory.

Students have differences, differences which create advantages in different technologies. Those differences need not be detailed to you as educators - because we do not know your medical degree status or your ability to evaluate socially-constructed disabilities. So, if a student is not actually disrupting you as a teacher, there is no legitimate reason to prevent a student from using any communication tool to function in your class.

What too many here are trying to do is enforce their vision of "ability" on a diverse student population. That is why this is about "power" and not "technology." You seem to want students to act like you. You seem to want to reward those who do act like you. That's frighteningly socially reproductive.

Now, to Melanie - you did indeed bring your personal teaching self into this debate, and that remains the only evidence you have presented. When people present "research" they are doing so because they want people to assume - to assume generalizability as I said above. The readers looked at your evidence and raised alarms about it - not just about its generalizability and reliability, but importantly, about potential side effects of your educational philosophy. Just as others here insist that I am leading our youth to distraction. That's responsible reading of research.

http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2009/07/argument-and-belief.html

http://www.wlecentre.ac.uk/cms/files/occasionalpapers/mobilelearning_pachler2007.pdf

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Designing_for_Social_Justice.pdf

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/opening_education/Personalisation_report.pdf

One of the nuances I really don't understand is how kids use cell phones cheat on tests. Any test I have ever given had answers too complex, too demanding, to fit in a Tweet! Of course, if your question is how long was the Seven Years' War, "7" is quite enough, but I thought tests were to be more than guess work and demand real thought. Or, perhaps, you're not after that but just an answer. Too bad, tweet, tweet.  

I think it's important that schools avoid the "crackdown" approach to cell phones. My district introduced a rule stating that cell phones are not allowed on school premises at all. I might add that this is a district encompassing over 100 schools, many of which are in bad neighborhoods. What are we supposed to do if we can't even have cell phones in our lockers or bags.

I think it's important that schools avoid the "crackdown" approach to cell phones. My district introduced a rule stating that cell phones are not allowed on school premises at all. I might add that this is a district encompassing over 100 schools, many of which are in bad neighborhoods. What are we supposed to do if we can't even have cell phones in our lockers or bags?

I think it's important that schools avoid the "crackdown" approach to cell phones. My district introduced a rule stating that cell phones are not allowed on school premises at all. I might add that this is a district encompassing over 100 schools, many of which are in bad neighborhoods. What are we supposed to do if we can't even have cell phones in our lockers or bags?

Melanie,

     We will always need good farriers and great calligraphers.

     I was challenging your assertion that "Students who own cellphones are still a minority in my school."  I noticed that you teach in Quebec which does have one of the lowest percentages of cell phone ownership in North America, but I'm still doubtful that the owners of cell phones are a minority.  I'm not accusing anyone of lying, though, because it is, of course, possible that less than 50% of your students own cell phones.  It is also possible that you made a mistake, or the students misunderstood your question.  At any rate,  very soon if not already it is much more than likely that a majority of your students will own cell phones.

The issue, though, is how you participate in the creation and then recreation of our ever evolving culture and society.  Our tools define our culture; our ways of expressing our thoughts and communicating our ideas are our literacy.

No matter what you teach or at what grade level you teach, cell phones are/will be a primary mode of literacy in our society.  Hey, the Dalai Lama is on Twitter. Pretending that cell phones are mere distractions to something else is denying the reality of our culture.  Lots of very good people make a living denying the reality of our culture, but our job is to teach.

I would have expected better from change.org frankly. I am half expecting someone to now post the famous "Top Ten Problems in Schools in the 1940s vs. the 1980s" list.

I don't disagree that cellphone culture and use is a challenge for teachers, and I don't fault the original letter writer (although I'm unclear why this is a change.org item?). The original letter is expressing a real frustration with how to teach in that environment. I could imagine some great responses to that.

But by confusing setting a class use policy with teaching "life skills", S. Curious engages in the worst sort of pedantry: asserting that dealing with a classroom behavioral issue through the application of power and authority is an instance of "teaching". 

It may be governing, but it is not teaching.

Commenters:

My intention was to withdraw quietly from this debate and watch and listen as the rest of you went at it - I've had my say, after all - but it occurred to me on further reflection that saying, "What an interesting discussion!" and stepping off was not living up to my responsibilities as a host. 

So I'd like to make one last interjection (on my part - I'm under no illusions that it will be the last comment here) about my feelings about this threa.d

I knew that this post would be provocative when I put it up - I  posted about the topic on my own blog a couple of years ago, and was astounded by the number of responses (my readership up to that point had been pretty limited).  I chose to give "advice" on this question (full disclosure: the letter rose out of a discussion with "Phonophobic"; I organized the substance of his concerns into letter form and then asked him to edit and approve the letter) because I have been revising my cell phone and laptop policy continually over the years, and continue to try to find ways to effectively deal with these devices.  I teach core curriculum classes, mostly to 17- and 18-year-olds, some of whom would rather be somewhere, anywhere else; it is a reality that classroom management issues loom large. 

In my response, I stated my position and policy as it stands right now.  The goal was to offer a moderate, realistic approach (and to approach it lightly - statements such as "Cell phones baffle me" were meant to be self-deprecating, but clearly that fell flat for some readers), and to elicit responses about other approaches.  In my responses to early comments, I tried as best I could to elucidate my perspective while avoiding defensive rejection of other positions.  I may or may not have been successful in this.

The discussion has been fascinating, many of the comments have been illuminating, and I have learned a lot.  The input from various commenters who come from perspectives different from mine has given me plenty of food for thought.

However, I think I, and many others, would have learned more readily and willingly if the tone had been different.  I fully agree with Melanie's comment above that suggests that hectoring, sneering and other aggressive communication behavior serve to undermine the communicator's messages.  Repeated remarks along the lines of "These ideas have no place here on this blog!" and "We [who is 'we'?] accommodate troglydites here" are particularly troubling.

John Gale's last elegant and articulate comment is a fine example of the kind of approach that might be more effective in fostering real exchange.  This is exactly the kind of communication I try to encourage in my classroom: my priority is to help students listen to others' positions with interest and respect, and to communicate their own positions in ways that will best reach people who DON'T already agree with their views, so that everyone can learn something about how others feel/think, and why they feel/think that way.

This is not my classroom - it is not even my blog - and so I will continue to listen and consider the responses that come in without making futile attempts to influence the tone or direction taken by commenters.  I have no interest in having the last word or in "defending" my position - I am fully open to learning something new; I am interested in exchange, not "battle" of any kind.

Coincidentally, my post today responds to a question about how to foster an atmosphere of open, respectful exchange in the classroom setting, if anyone is interested.

I have two concerns with your response. First, political and then pedagogical.

This webpage is a spinoff of the Obama campaign, and, as such, I am surprised at the "phonophobia" exhibited - by you and by Melanie particularly - since so much of that campaign, and of those campaigners, depended precisely on this kind of technology. In general, I shy away from a technophiliac response as well, but here, on this issue, find it kind of exhibitionistic and elitist. I'm sure that's not your intent, nor Melanie's, but that conflict of technological values made me unsure of your agenda.

And that is what led to my distrust of your pedagogy. There is ample literature on how to involve dis-interested young people in mandated core courses - one of my current clients, for example, is developing a "recovery curriculum" in 9th and 10th grade English and Math. The key pedagogical technique of demonstrated value is project-based or problem-based approaches, and not, absolutely not, through mandates, rules and the like. You might check out EduTopia for plenty of methods and models, or just google project based or problem based methods. Citing links is kind of redundant given the wealth of material.

But that underscores why I find your - and Melanie's - approaches so troubling. While I look for a diversity of opinion on an Obama-spin-off blog, one that cites authoritarian methods seems profoundly inappropriate and odd. I wonder what you found in the Obama campaign so attractive? It further troubles me that your interests may, in fact, reflect more of the administration than I expected.

For example, I attended a seminar yesterday with Alan Solomont, the President of the Corporation for Public and Community Service. I expected - in Boston, in the 8th Congressional district which houses more college and graduate students on the globe, and has the lowest high school graduation rate in the state - I expected a discussion of how community service might ameliorate this town-gown chasm. Didn't happen. 

In fact, I found precisely the opposite. A long disquisition on how attractive community service was, recruiting so many more this year than ever before; and on how valuable that service is, attracting more nonprofits than ever requesting VISTA and other paid volunteers. That disquistion was even more profoundly disquieting than your curricular nuances, since it ignored the worst labor market since 1935 and the deepest cuts in state and local community services ever. The reality is that Solomont and Obama have found an extraordinary technique - in the words of one of my students - to subvert the minimum wage. That is profoundly unsettling. Yet, even worse, their technique also destroys unions in nonprofit and university settings. That is political disaster, and they don't - won't or can't - recognize it.

Note that those are not MY observations, but the observations of an 18 year old just leaving high school, whose only option is community service.

Where does that put this administration, these methodological concerns, and ... technology or cell phones? Ironically, the same kids find answers to questions - often not just those fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice questions - using their cell. They use them for math - with which they are often far more facile than I or my generation - and they use them for web searches and verifications. How in the world can a teacher not be thrilled with students who want answers and know how to get them quickly, efficiently, and responsively?

Well, that truly is the next generation, and pedagogy has got to catch up with them since public policy surely hasn't. Even our "progressive" public policy. 

This is a response to Clay's Singapore post: (Good luck on the housing - that, too, along with rock and roll, is a universal issue.)

Clay said, "I have to agree there is a level of condescension and sarcasm that really does quite ironically undercut a lot of arguments in this thread that technology can help teach social skills and civilized debate. I would be surprised to hear some of the more cutting things said above in a face to face discussion. That they were said by the pro-cellphone camp is surprising."

I've read some condescension, sarcasm, and even passive aggressive hostility from the anti-cell phone folks, too.  Getting rid of cell phones is a hostile act in this day and age; it's not instruction in etiquette.  As Joe said, using this tool, the change.org blog, to boltster resistance to change is what's surprising.

Thanks, btw, for clarifying the non-connection to the Obama administration.

Last thought,

I have probably been sarcastic. I am a sarcastic guy. And I was born into a culture of argument. Which brings the issue back around to the core actually.

Just as in the Gates case in Cambridge, it is not all right for those in the dominant culture to insist that we all behave exactly according to their norms. And we must understand that a threat to what many of us perceive as student civil rights might enflame passions, and not punish people for being angry.

Anger is a legitimate thing in education. Passion is a legitimate thing. And I will not apologize. As far as I am concerned, the "anti" voices here are being disrespectful to their students and are diminishing the chances that their students will succeed. I stated that clearly. I proposed alternate solutions to meet the needs of both teachers and students. I offered international research to support my position.

In response what I keep hearing is a desire to enforce decorum, and a desire to enforce a particular historic period's view of technology. I have not seen an evidence-based argument to indicate why either is vital educationally. I have heard a lot of personal preferences cited, with the expressed proviso that these personal preferences not be challenged. And now I hear the desire to ensure that no one may be offended in an argument - with "offended" meaning a challenge to drawing room politeness, but not meaning expressing repugnant attitudes toward students.

One of the reasons our contemporary media are so essential in the classroom is the opportunity these systems provide for tearing down the walls of the classroom and allowing diverse voices in. When Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner wrote "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" 40 years ago they envisioned a radical new role for teachers, and a radical new role for students. I was lucky enough to attend a high school designed by them. But I was aware, even then, that this model worked well in large northeastern US cities, and in places like Ann Arbor, because that diversity of voices was physically present. That ability to challenge the teacher as close as a subway ride away.

I will point out, that the high school I attended, despite stunning diversity, was as "successful" by any measure as any in the US. You need only check the alumni list to confirm that.

Today, our century's communications technologies allow that to happen everywhere. Those who resist them are doing so, in my opinion - an opinion formed via Gramsci and Freire, yes - because their comfort and power is more important to them than the lives of our children.

That makes me angry. As I believe it should.

I can't resist a last comment of my own. In 1959 I had a brilliant English teacher in high school - she's still around, and an international leader in gifted ed. But, for the second semester, she quit to take care of her baby and was replaced by an abysmal successor.

Ever since then I've been able to guide students who don't like their teacher to learn from them. Many teachers teach what NOT to be quite eloquently. Many demand and require when they might, instead, lead and inspire. Many force when they could, instead, celebrate the products of their students. Tough. The world is often pretty ugly. If there is a dreadful mismatch twixt student and teacher learning/teaching style, that also is a worthy learning opportunity.

I have found with this new generation, a new spin on this, however. They chat and tweet and IM each other like grandparents across a back fence in Iowa. They learn from each other how to manipulate, how to circumvent, and how to transcend the limits of their teachers.

These skills are not limited by class, although they are less frequent among immigrants who - quite logically - often take a little longer to trust each other. They are, however, most often limited by age and chronology.

I've also been absolutely enchanted to be invited into their world, which usually excludes those over 20 or 22 or so. There is a remarkable bi-modality between millenials and those of us of the 60's. Those in-between can sometimes catch a lifeline, but it's usually wireless and hard to see.

That is why I sometimes slither into a kind of patronizing patois. I feel remarkably safe among the goodguys of the next cycle. Ironically, I also know the research that justifies their cause, and the methodology and technology to push just when they pull up that hill. Frequently that kind of knowledge leads to complacency. But I'm hardly complacent. Nor are they.

Were I a 'tweener I'd look very hard over my shoulder and up, to the geezers who, like Warren Bennis, discovered the affinity between "Geeks and Geezers." We don't have to be right any longer: they are. 

And, to Ira, I used Weingartner & Postman to teach "Foundations of Education" at UMass in the summer of 1969, at the peak of our high time. That was after a year at EDC and at a lovely, small black college, and just before a year with Abt and two with Saul Alinsky's widow and son, at Emerson. Those were days of glory, and plenty of reason to be angry at complacency and furious with ignorance. Not that a cell phone is itself brilliant, but it's sure an easy way out of a dead end argument.

@ Ira.

I'm a college student myself, and I see absolutely no reason why it isn't completely acceptable for cell phones to not be answered during class.  Nobody has to enforce the notion either, everyone just accepts it, because using cell phones in the middle of class can be very distracting to OTHER students.

In every post, you write vague analogies about past technology, and people who opposed it in the past.

This isn't at all about opposing technology, this is about maintaining relative order in the classroom for the sake of the people in class who don't want the interuption. 

You linked to a blog where you talked about your great ability to multi-task in class in an engineering class.  Like myself, there are many other students who don't share your gift for multi-tasking, and pay just as much as you do to attend.

It seems to me that your whole argument leaves out the fact that there are other students in the classroom, not just you and the teacher.

This position of maintaining decorum and control is actually a canard for not wanting to face the overwhelming change that is occurring in our world.  No one is suggesting to not have consideration for others.  In fact, Ira is pleading that others have more consideration for those for whom the new technologies are are vital. 

I think the ludites here feel put upon because they weren't consulted when the world decided to change, and by god and every other notion that can be called upon they intend to maintain their place.  Get over it! This isn't personal; it's universal.

David,

I'm not sure that you've actually read any of my comments. I never suggested that it was ok to answer your phone in class. I suggested that you be able to silence it if you forgot to set it on silent, and I suggested that, if a call comes through which you must take (something which occurs visually and silently on mobile phones) that you leave the room to answer it.

What many of us here are discussing is the ways you use the handheld ICT device which are often also phones as part of our learning experience. I began by saying that I, and some of my students, take notes on their phones (others use laptops). My students can communicate with their classmates with these devices as well - we share research links, powerpoints, videos, statistics, ideas, notes, doubts. They can communicate with me - as the "instructor" via polleverywhere, todaysmeet, Google Docs. And we can convert media into the best form for our own uses - a critical component of the idea of education which works for all.

You are concerned with distraction. If I say I am distracted by the sound of pens on paper (I am) or writing with chalk on a blackboard (I am), can I make you stop writing notes by hand, or stop the instructor from using the blackboard? In other words, why are your preferences more important than mine? Or as I said above, could I, as an "instructor," prohibit you from using paper, pens, or books in the classroom? Thus adopting MK's theory that, as the instructor, I'm in charge?

And, just a note. You are surely welcome to read the documents linked and declare these "vague analogies." A good student will read, doubt, and challenge based on literature and research, but if you were to read William Alcott's 1842 book you will find the same discussions revolving around slates. Not every child can afford. Teachers may not know exactly what students are doing. They are distracting. They take time away from books. But surely, many other things were written at the same time. You can find these on your mobile phone through Google Books. I'd love to have you read, and join me in the research.

web 2.0 guives a lot of tools that can be use with cellphones, I think that if students persist usign them in class, you should stop making of that a problem but using tools like twitter to develop some activities, not the whole class but if students see that it's not prohibited they probably stop doing it, specially teens.