Bring up the topic of kids having cell phones in school, and you're likely to have three responses in this order of preference, with slight variations on each (except #3):
1. Ban them
2. Pretend they don't exist
3. Encourage students to use them
It's #3 that interests me the most, especially after reading Will Richardson's most recent post. What Will points out - which many of us know already but haven't let our minds take it to a logical conclusion - is that the "connected" item of choice is really the cell phone (smart phones, iPhone, etc). Indeed, research suggests that mobile devices will become the preferred means of accessing the internet within the next 5 years.
As an example, I attended a talk by Antonio Viva (Associate Head of School, Worcester Academy - named Head of Walnut Hill School for July 2010) just the other day. We were encouraged to bring our laptops...but I opted to bring my Motorola Q (smart phone) instead. Why bother lugging around a laptop, when I have a convenient, hand-held mobile device that would allow me to do the same thing? It seemed silly.
So, the operative question is this: why would we ban or ignore cell phones when we could be encouraging students to use them as part of our curriculum? To be sure, we would have to provide professional development for teaching faculty (and administrators) on just how we would integrate this technology into extant curricula, but should that exercise dissuade us from doing it?
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