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.

I'm excited to use Pandora because it's free and I already had a bunch of Latino stations I can use in the classroom.  I can use this to play during a do now or other "down time" where students are entering or exiting or working quietly.  It does have commercials but it seems like there is no interruption for continuous play.

 

Just thought I would share.  Not sure how many other people use music in the classroom, but this certainly makes it easier.  No need to bring the iPod or buy a ton of songs on ITUNEs which I have done already.

I saw a two-year old kid (in diapers, in a stroller), using an iPod Touch today. Not just looking at it, but browsing menus and interacting. This is a revolution, guys.

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."

Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it. Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010.

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

Some interesting thoughts from the writer of the uLearning Blog. Follow the link to read the full post. Most enlightening was the writer's response to the growing proliferation of iPod Touches and iPhones in classrooms:

And what should an educator’s response be? Possibly you’re already in the middle of deploying one of these options – and if so, my biggest suggestion is – reflect. While our sector has stood still for so long, the current rush might make us forget our usual values of tying everything we do to our learning vision first. So reflect first, then on how these devices can enhance learning – don’t make learning fit to them.

It is refreshing to have an educator say that we need to reflect first and tie everything we do to our learning vision. So often in schools we run after the latest educational technology fad. In education we need more sustained deep reflection before embarking on any technology initiatives. Do small pilots to test a hypothesis and find critical stress points.

I also like the writer's comment that we should not make learning fit the device. I am not a big proponent of electronic whiteboards or Smartboards. I feel these devices are an example of trying to make learning fit the device. We spent years trying to get teachers away from the front of the classroom controlling everything and now we anchor them to the front of the room using an electronic whiteboard. Backwards innovation.

The people at the Slide to Learn website have put together this PDF as a comprehensive guide for using Apple's mobile products in the classroom. Follow the link and give it a look, It is very well done.

 Teachers are finding interesting and creative ways to include mobile phones in classroom instruction in an effort to bridge the divide between the technologies children use at home and what they use in school, education technology experts say.