What is more disruptive, banning cell phones and requiring teachers to confiscate them, or embracing student cell phones and teaching students how to use them more responsibly. For the 2009-2010 school year we changed our cell phone policy at the school were I serve as an assistant principal. We allow students to use their cell phones in between classes and in the cafeteria during their lunch period. The rest of the school day is instructional time and their cell phones are to be off and out of site unless a teacher is using them as part of the lesson.

 

Additionally, we made another change to our cell phone policy. We no longer require teachers to confiscate a student's cell phone if they violate the policy. We tell the teachers to write up a conduct report and turn it in to the main office and we will handle it from there. Our goal was to eliminate the classroom struggle that ensues between the teacher and a student when there is a cell phone policy violation.

 

The school I work in is a high school with about 1050 students. It is a middle to upper-middle class neighborhood. Almost all of our students carry a cell phone and an iPod of some sort.

Overall we have not had an increase in cell phone policy violations versus the same time last year when we did not allow cell phones to be used during the school day. In all honesty the students treated the change in the policy like it was no big deal. Many students have told me that by allowing them to use their phones it has removed the temptation to take them out at other times when it would be inappropriate. 

In all honesty I expected the violations for this school year (09-10) to be higher. One of the reasons I expected higher numbers was because teachers do not have to confiscate the student's cell phone when the student violates the policy. I thought this change in procedure would result in more discipline reports. Not the case.

A recent article in Edutopia.org talks about using iPods as voice recording devices to provide feedback to students who are learning to read. According to the article the students can listen to themselves reading and it provides the "missing mirror" in terms of reading instruction. The last thing students with poor reading skills want to do is read aloud in front of their peers. Having students read into an iPod provides a non-threatening outlet for students to listen to themselves read. Apparently this process also improved the students ability to read.

Evidence of Student Outcomes

Escondido and Canby classrooms are seeing large gains in the speed of student reading, one part of reading fluency. In a Canby fourth-grade classroom of sixteen students, from the fall to mid-year assessment of reading fluency, when average increase in word count per minute (WCPM) is 12, the average in the iPod classroom was close to 20. (WCPM measures the pace of reading; accuracy is another component of fluency.) Most students achieved more than double the average expected.

In an Escondido fourth-grade class of ten students, average increase was 48 WCPM in just six weeks. At the start of fourth grade, all of the students lagged behind the 120 WCPM goal for third-grade completion. Within the six-week period, more than half of them had caught up and surpassed the goal for fourth-grade completion, making more than a year's progress in that period.

A pilot study of reading achievement using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills also showed impressive gains. A group of 12 fifth-graders in Escondido using iPod Touches averaged 1.8 years of reading progress in six months, compared with a matched group of students at the same school who averaged .25, a quarter of a year’s increase. Both districts are planning larger-scale studies of reading achievement.

The iPod makes personal a process that has been painfully public. No struggling reader likes to have his or her weaknesses exposed in a group, in front of the entire class or their reading circle. The iPod enables more intimate, 1:1 reading instruction between a student and a teacher listening to each other's voices in audio files.

We have heard teacher after teacher say, 'This has totally transformed my teaching!' 'I'm having more fun and being a better teacher.' 'I'm never gonna retire.'" One teacher told Shirley, '"Using iPods with microphones has engaged students more than anything I've ever experienced! These tools allow even the softest speaker to be heard and motivate even the most reluctant reader." Another said succinctly: "There's less of me talking and more of them doing."

Follow this link to a spreadsheet that lists hundreds of apps for the iPod Touch broken down by grade and subject. It is a great resource if you use iPods in your classroom.

Students can use their iPod touches in plain sight in Mark Schuler’s World History class at Roswell High School here.

Roswell officials, unlike most of their counterparts around the country, have changed their view of the MP3 players, seeing them less as contraband and more as educational accessories. Educators at the 2,400-student school in suburban Atlanta are hoping to put more content at students’ fingertips and capture their interest by enlisting the digital tools today’s teenagers have already mastered for social and leisure purposes.

“Five years ago iPods were banned, but we got overwhelmed with trying to discipline kids and fight the technology,” says Edward Spurka, the principal of Roswell High. “Our philosophy here now is let them have it, ..."

"If we think about the world that we're preparing them for, it's not a world of textbooks and pencils," says Cashton Elementary principal Ryan Alderson.

The Cashton School District is preparing students by bringing some of the latest technology into the classroom.

"We use the SMART boards or the iPods or the iPod touch on almost a daily basis," says Cashton Elementary teacher Beth Lee.

It's not just at the high school level, First and second graders practice their arithmetic on the iPod touch, and are already learning the basics of Microsoft Publisher.

"By using technology it really does individualize their instruction," says Alderson.

For example, an entire class could watch a video together, but the iPod touch allows each student to take in the information at his or her own pace.

Henrico County (VA) schools Superintendent Patrick Russo said that learning anywhere and anytime is "the next wave."

"As technology evolves, I think you will see iPhones and other mobile devices . . . be part of the teaching process as well as a communication process between teachers and students," he said.

In Chesterfield County (VA), the School Board approved a five-year technology plan in December that includes $3 million for a mobile technology pilot program for students. The money will come from the district's capital improvement plan.A committee of administrators, teachers and students has been looking at the feasibility of using cell phones, iPod Touches and netbooks in the classroom, said Dallas Dance, Chesterfield's director of school improvement, who is leading the committee. "This is what [students are] using at home and have heard a lot about, but we, the school systems, have not been stepping up," he said. "Our primary goal is to increase student achievement, and we want to increase it by engaging students through these 21st-century tools."

"We have to at least explore the potential of the use of these technology tools, said Chesterfield schools Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome, who is part of the committee. "At this point, I don't see that there will be a wholesale implementation of anything with our students, but I think we need to investigate in terms of some pilots."

"It the past, it seems as though [the cell phone] has been a tool that's been disruptive to the teaching and learning process, but if there's a way to turn it around to our advantage, we need to investigate," Newsome said.

The Virginia Department of Education launched Learning without Boundaries two years ago. The initiative, in cooperation with Virginia Tech and Radford University, is studying the potential benefits of wireless hand-held technologies in schools.