According to this article in Distrcit Administration, authors Cathleen Norris and Elliot Soloway think every student in every grade in every school will be using a mobile computing device for learning within 5 years. Why do they think this will be the case? The authors give two reasons for their hypothesis.
The first reason they state is that it was adults who brought laptops, electronic whiteboards, handheld clickers, and online materials into the classroom, whereas it is students themselves who are bringing in the mobile technology (for the record Soloway and Norris consider cell phones, smartphones, and netbooks as mobile devices. They do not consider 5-7 lb laptops to be mobile devices). They elaborate on this analysis by highlighting the electronic whiteboard:
The electronic whiteboard, quite frankly, is the quintessential example of our generation’s technology. An electronic whiteboard is just a whiteboard— albeit an expensive one. Teachers have been using chalkboards and whiteboards for hundreds of years. Teachers are comfortable using their generation’s technology. By and large, students don’t see a significant difference between chalkboards, whiteboards and electronic whiteboards with respect to teaching and learning.
Norris and Soloway then make the case the cell phone is the "quintessential technology of today’s mobile generation." They argue that cell phones are essential to student's lives and that we should meet students where they are ( A point Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently made). They also state that:
...schools are waging a battle—a battle they are losing and should lose—against cell phones.
They think we should let students use their toolbox ( i.e. mobile devices) for teaching and learning. They say if you turn off the voice and texting function of cell phones you eliminate 95% of problems schools have with cell phones (Note - a cell phone with voice and text turned off is an iPod Touch, read here why I think these are compelling devices). According to Norris and Soloway:
Mobile devices will do for student-centric K12 what desktops and laptops have done for adult-centric industries.
The second reason they give for supporting their hypothesis is that:
Over the next five years, Internet connected mobile computing devices will drop dramatically in price—and increase in functionality.
Norris and Soloway believe the inverse relationship between increasing functionality and decreasing prices will drive wide-scale adoption of mobile devices. So much so that schools might only need to provide 25% of their population with a mobile device because the rest of the students will already own one. They think one-to-one computing is:
...as necessary as textbooks, as desks, as oxygen. The only way America’s schools can afford one-to-one is by going mobile.
Almost all of the points Norris and Soloway make in their article I have been trumpeting here on this blog ( Here, here, and here). I think they are dead on in their analysis of the current educational landscape and where it will inevitably end up. I never thought of it as adult centric computing devices and student centric devices, but they make a good point. I have stated that students are less bothered by the small screen real estate of a mobile device than adults are. Today's students grew up on handheld video games and they seem to have no problem with the small screens. When I think of today's generation and learning the words access, mobility, creating, collaborating, and others come to mind. It is truly amazing what can be accomplished so easily with today's technology. Students today arrive at school with different expectations and a different skill set than yesterday's students.
On Norris and Soloway's point of decreasing prices and increasing functionality I couldn't agree more. This was highlighted with Apple's announcement last week of the new iPad. Apple was able to get AT&T to cut their mobile broadband prices in half. In my opinion that was one of the major outcomes of Apple's announcement and I listed it as one of the major things I liked about the new iPad (click here to read the post). Other wireless providers will now have to follow suit if they want to keep up with Apple and AT&T. Prices will continue to decline and already we are experiencing a ramping up of new smartphones from many different providers. It is getting difficult to stay on top of all the new devices that are showing up on the mobile landscape. Apple has kicked the proverbial can way down the road and Nokia, Palm, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, and Dell, just to name a few, are desperately trying to keep up. I think this competition is good for consumers and will eventually be good for education.
If school leaders are wise they will begin now to prepare for the mobile explosion that is arriving on their shores, even today. They can start by embracing mobile technology and crafting policies and practices that allow for their limited and controlled use in classrooms. Schools can conduct pilot projects with a small set of mobile devices in their high school or elementary classrooms. They change their high school cell phone policies to allow for limited use throughout the school day and spend time educating students how to use handheld deives in a socially responsable way. I believe if schools cautiously and incrimentally over time embrace mobile technology the disruption they can cause will be minimal and can even improve teaching and learning in the long run.
The mobile computing earthquake has unleashed a tsunami that will eventually change the educational landscape as we know it. The schools that acknowledge this and take action now will be better prepared for the changes that are coming.
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