Week 1- Free Topic: Using Cell Phones in the Classroom
Friday, March 4, 2011 | Noelia Badillo
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| Image made by Noelia Badillo |
iPads in the classroom by Noelia Badillo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Technological advances have meant that students of this generation are fully exposed to cell phones, since the use of these today is not primarily and exclusively communicate via voice, but also through text messages and the Internet. There are many controversies that cover this particular issue, but is it really effective to allow students, at least high school, to use this type of device in the classroom? My personal experience regarding this issue has been more positive than negative but this is because the class I teach is technology, and the use of cellphones in a computer class can be very effective and beneficial. In my case, I got students to use this equipment to do Internet browsing when my school’s Internet wasn’t working. I've had days in which, for technical reasons, the speed and functionality of the Internet has been extremely slow and the time I have available to work on lessons or projects related to the class is very limited. When these situations arise, students are frustrated and even upset because they cannot complete their work. By allowing them to use their phone as an alternate tool in the classroom, they feel they have the opportunity to solve problems with something that is part of their everyday life, and above all that is something that has more than one use. Another situation that I got to solve by allowing students to use their cell phone was at a time in which I only had 5 microphones. I had 9 students waiting to record their narration during the Digital Storytelling project, so 4 of them had to wait for others to finish, so I took the liberty of asking who had cell phones and they recorded their work using their iPhones and then sent it to their e-mails to download the files to their computer. Although both situations occurred with two different groups, their reaction was the same. Their facial expressions and reactions showed me that, as a teacher I am willing to break with certain patterns if it is for a positive learning purpose.
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1 comments:
great topic that still remains highly controversial.
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