{"id":1836,"date":"2010-05-10T07:53:21","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T11:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicholsclan.com\/tinblog\/?p=1836"},"modified":"2010-05-06T08:32:45","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T12:32:45","slug":"texting-at-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/05\/texting-at-school.html","title":{"rendered":"Texting at School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/the_thread\/brandnewday\/archives\/verizon-xv6800-smartphone.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Phone\" src=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/the_thread\/brandnewday\/archives\/verizon-xv6800-smartphone.jpg\" alt=\"Phone\" width=\"224\" height=\"219\" \/><\/a>Teachers are beginning to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aolnews.com\/weird-news\/article\/teaching-by-texting-starts-to-take-hold\/19459259\">experiment with students using cell phones in class<\/a>.\u00a0 A sign of the apocalypse?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 In my own time, the introduction of calculator use by students was foretold as the end of students ability to do math.\u00a0 When my kids were starting school computer use was seen as intrusive rather than instructive.\u00a0 And I expect this is more of the same along those lines.<\/p>\n<p>For years, most schools have prohibited phone use in school.\u00a0 More recently, many schools have allowed phone use when not in class, which is a concession to the reality that by high school most students are tethered to their devices.\u00a0 It&#8217;s actually less disruptive to let them have some access as long as it&#8217;s not interrupting their education.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the reality is that the devices in most pockets are capable of way more than simply texting friends.\u00a0 They are small computers, and using them for educational purposes isn&#8217;t remotely a stretch.\u00a0 Further, engaged students learn more.\u00a0 And students generally like using their phones.\u00a0 Finding a way to incorporate those devices into lessons seems a natural way to keep students interested.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly there will be challenges.\u00a0 The variety of individual phone interfaces and capabilities will make it hard for teachers to instruct students with similar but different tools.\u00a0 And there&#8217;s always the challenge of keeping students on task.\u00a0 Once the phone is out of their pocket or purse, how do you know they aren&#8217;t just chatting with friends or goofing off?\u00a0 You probably don&#8217;t.\u00a0 But then I have distinct memories of a classmate in fifth grade who kept comic books inside his textbooks so he had something interesting to read during class.\u00a0 The point being, kids have always goofed off.<\/p>\n<p>The key element being that the powerful pocket devices these kids carry now, and likely will have always, can be extremely useful tools.\u00a0 Teaching them to fully exploit these tools to elevate their capabilities is what education is all about.\u00a0 This is just another technological evolutionary step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Teachers are beginning to experiment with students using cell phones in class.\u00a0 A sign of the apocalypse?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 In<\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\"><a href=\"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/05\/texting-at-school.html\" title=\"Read Texting at School\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekypursuits","category-madscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1836"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1851,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1836\/revisions\/1851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}