More Schools Encouraging Smartphones in the Classroom

With schools around the country tightening their policies on cell phone use to keep distracted students on task, a few schools are actually encouraging students to bring their electronic devices into the classroom. Education Week shares that the Tangipahoa school district in Louisiana recently decided to allow the Hammond High Magnet School and Jewel Sumner High School to let students bring their smartphones into classrooms for academic use. School board member Brett Duncan stated, “The other schools that have experimented with this have found that teaching a child the proper way to use technology is a much better approach to controlling the use of that technology.”

BYOT

The Advocate reports that the district has dubbed its new policy BYOT, or “Bring Your Own Technology.” The principal at Hammond High Magnet, Chad Troxclair, is excited about the new policy. Only a year ago, the school purchased more than 200 iPads, with the aid of a grant, and students have become adept at using them to enhance and extend learning. BYOT can extend these learning activities even further, especially with the availability of so many free and low-cost educational apps. Troxclair used the example of a graphing calculator. Normally, this type of calculator can cost up to or more than $100, where an inexpensive app can turn your phone into a graphing calculator. The most important thing, Troxclair added, is to “teach them responsibly.” Should the new policy prove to be successful, Superintendent Mark Kolwe will look at how the program can be expanded.

BYOD

In New York, BYOD, or “Bring Your Own Device” policies were encouraged at a technology summit on July 31 at the Murray Bergtraum High School for Business Careers. According to the Epoch Times, CMO of Bradford Networks, Tom Bradford, presented at the summit of educators, students, administrators and technology professionals. He stated, “We need to find a way to go out and embrace IT — ultimately build platforms where people can learn and achieve greater results.” While BYOD is popular in the business world, it has been slow to catch on in schools, but some educators are recognizing the value of allowing students to use their own devices and capitalizing on technology’s teaching potential. However, one challenge is that not all students have mobile devices. John McCabe, a manager with the company Epson, said, “There’s a generational digital divide, and there’s the demographic divide.” BYOT and BYOD policies may be detrimental to students whose families cannot afford smartphones and other new technology.

Smartphones and ESL

TESOL blogger and ESL instructor, Alexandra Lowe, finds that the use of smartphones can be particularly beneficial and motivating in ESL (English as a Second Language) or ELL (English Language Learners) classes. She wrote, “At worst, they are an annoying distraction, with students furtively texting family and friends and disengaging from class. But at best, they can be put to exciting and memorable use.” She decided to have her students record themselves giving short speeches in class, so they can play them back and listen, “transcribe” their speeches and work on corrections. Students worked with partners to identify common errors in the speeches and the class worked as a whole to categorize errors and rewrite transcripts. The smartphones are valuable to ESL students as they rarely get a chance to listen to their own voices while trying to speak a new language. They are able to look at themselves from the outside and be more reflective in their language acquisition and usage. In addition to this activity, Busy Teacher has a list of nine apps specifically for ESL and ELL classrooms, ranging from dictionaries to conversational English lessons. Smartphones are certainly not going away any time soon, but fortunately, there are many ways for teachers to embrace them.  

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