Keeping the mobile out of the classroom, why?

Keeping the mobile out of the classroom, why?

Here’s a question.

Does your institution ban mobile phones in the classroom? Does it just ban the use of mobile phones in the classroom? Or does it just ban the inappropriate use of mobile phones in the classroom?

Virtually everyone in the UK has a mobile phone these days, according to statistics there are more mobile phones then people – that I understand I usually carry two and have been known to carry three!

The reason for asking was this blog post and the comments below, about a school in the US which bans mobile phones and even uses metal scanners to detect them.

Students Pay a Price (Literally) for Cell Phone Ban

These students have phones, use them for communication, entertainment and social networking, but don’t use them for learning (as they are banned).

Now I realise like any teacher that a student using a phone inappropriately can disrupt a class and that’s a fair comment, but not a student can use a book to disrupt a class (throwing or dropping it (especially if it’s a big book)) but do we ban books?

A student can disrupt a class with a pencil and paper, do we ban those?

A student can disrupt a class with their voice, do we silence all students?

The key with any great learning process is the relationship between teacher and student, get that right and you are onto a winner.

Disruption happens with that relationship breaks down, not when a phone rings.

3 thoughts on “Keeping the mobile out of the classroom, why?”

  1. I couldn’t agree more! Banning mobiles in schools for either the disruption argument or health reasons limits using them for learning support. It’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Nice blog!

  2. Have you seen a new company called Tellefoni.com ? They’re offering voice based mlearning. They call it grandma friendly ‘cos anyone can make a phone call. People call a number and record a voice message. They save it and the system automatically emails or send SMS to subscribers. Good for audio portfolios too because when you record a message it can be posted to specific folders on the web for private or shared viewing. That’s mlearning made easy don’t you agree?

    cheers,

    Nick Bowskill
    Tellefoni.com owner
    frontdesk@tellefoni.com

Leave a Reply