Mobile Phones in Schools: Friend or foe? (Times Educational Supplement Magazine Article, November 2009)

I’m quoted in an article by Meabh Ritchie in this weeks Times Educational Supplement Magazine. I think it’s a good piece by Meabh that is mostly positive about mobile phone use in schools. It has been written in response to Chris Keates from the NASUMT who recently suggested that Mobile Phones should be categorized as 'offensive weapons' in schools.

I just want to make a couple of points on the article to put my quotes that are contained within it in a little more context:

Firstly, I still find it a little strange that Mr Keates would like to see mobile phones re-classified as potentially offensive weapons and to be honest I've never been exactly sure what he ment by this exact classification.

In my experience a potentially offensive weapon would be something like chemicals in science or a chisel in design and technology. But we don’t ban these things from schools - instead we teach and work with our children to use these tools safely and responsibly.  For me this is the key.

Of course a union or local education authority could suggest that children just don’t bring their phones to school? But I suspect that many parents would not be very happy about this for perceived safety and security reasons.  So instead we end up giving children mixed messages. Students are allowed to bring their phones to school, because they are important, but they are not aloud to use them.

It’s like saying, ‘don’t press that big red button’ – of course they will use them, they are children!

A better way for schools to manage something like mobile phone use in class might be to develop robust policy at a local level? This policy should put the decision of whether children should or shouldn’t be allowed to use mobile phones in class directly into the hands of the individual classroom teacher. I think it would be better to trust the profession with this decision rather than suggesting a blanket ban?

I can 100% understand why some teachers wouldn’t want to use mobile phones with children. But that’s up to them.  I am also NOT SAYING that if you choose not to use a mobile device then you have classroom management issues. What I AM SAYING is we shouldn’t stop the teachers who want to make creative use of this technology to craft innovative and engaging learning experiences in schools.

Every year we hear some horror stories of children misusing mobile phones in class. To my knowledge these stories normally come from classrooms where these devices are banned. Why don’t we start from a basis of trust, emphasize responsible, safe use and apply common sense to deal with any issues?

Anyway, have a read of the article below or in the TES Magazine. Let me know what you think and feel free to leave any comments below or over on the Times Educational Supplement Website. As always I am open to  criticism and feedback.

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Friend or foe?

Feature | Published in TES Magazine on 27 November, 2009 | By: Meabh Ritchie

One teaching union has branded mobile phones potential offensive weapons. But there’s a growing realisation that, despite their nuisance value, they also represent a huge untapped learning resource - and a cheap one at that

As the best-of lists of cool gadgets for the past decade start to fill Sunday newspaper magazines, all-singing, all-dancing, camera-boasting mobile phones will be up there with the iPod and Google as some of the Noughties’ best technological advances. But when it comes to the classroom, the devices are deemed far from desirable.

When Notre Dame High School in Sheffield announced that it was considering using mobile phones and MP3 players in lessons last month, the news was met with shock and indignation from the tabloid press. Notre Dame’s assistant headteacher, Paul Haigh, described mobiles as “a huge untapped resource”, enabling pupils to get involved in technology without the school buying more hardware.

But the move was blasted by the NASUWT, which called for a ban on mobiles. Chris Keates, its general secretary, branded them a “potentially offensive weapon” and blaming them for a range of offences against teachers, from staged incidents where pupils record teachers’ reactions and then post the video on YouTube, to manipulating photos taken in class and posting them online.

Ms Keates is aware her position has been seen as anti-progress, but argues that protecting teachers’ privacy doesn’t equate with shunning new technological methods.

“I don’t subscribe to the view that teachers aren’t knowledgeable about technology,” says Ms Keates. “This idea that because a teacher says, ‘I don’t find mobile phones useful in my lesson,’ they’re a technology Luddite, is insulting to the profession. Often the suggestion comes from people who’ve lost touch with the day-to-day realities of the classroom.”

Despite the outcry, increasing numbers of teachers are using their initiative to incorporate mobiles into parts of lessons. Even aside from web capabilities on smart phones, the humblest mobile phone will feature a camera, a voice recorder and text messaging, which can be used across the curriculum. Teachers with experience of using mobile phones in a learning context argue that the debate should shift away from why they should be used to how.

For Ollie Bray, the national adviser for learning and technology futures at Learning and Teaching Scotland and the deputy head at Musselburgh Grammar School, classroom management is key, and the same would apply with any new piece of equipment.

“The teacher and students should establish a set of rules for the use of phones in class,” he says. “If someone decides to break these rules or makes a mistake, then this might result in the loss of privilege or some other sanction.”

Using a mobile phone doesn’t necessarily require the most up-to-date technological knowledge. However, most of the successful, educational examples of mobile phone use in the classroom have been at schools and colleges with a solid grounding and support for ICT, suggesting that it is teachers who are confident in their own understanding and knowledge of technology and its use who are happy to try them out in a learning context.

“Some teachers need to be more confident in asking pupils for help and asking them how they are already using this technology out of school to help them learn,” says Mr Bray. “Do some teachers have a problem with pupils using mobile phones, or do they have a problem with classroom management? And how are senior leadership teams tackling this through monitoring supervision?”

Mr Bray, who also happens to be an NASUWT member, acknowledges the risk to teachers, but believes that banning phones won’t minimise this risk. Health and safety is already assessed when looking at many aspects of school life, especially outdoor activities, and the same should apply to mobile phone use.

“School trips go ahead because the risk is acceptable, some go ahead after extra control measures have been put in place and some are not allowed to run because the activity is too risky. How much is the use of mobile phones in school ‘actual risk’ or ‘perceived risk’?” he says. “How many schools have thought about risk-assessing the use of technology in the same way that they would a school trip?”

At Sheffield College, pupils (between 14 and 19) and parents have to sign a contract agreeing to appropriate behaviour before they’re allowed to use mobile phones in school. David Pickersgill, the manager of the college’s digital centre of vocational excellence, says that giving pupils that responsibility has a positive effect on their behaviour. Of course, there is still a risk that the contract will be broken, but this is something teachers have to take on board. “That doesn’t mean that they should be banned for everyone,” he says.

Sheffield College is one of 115 colleges and 29 schools working under the MoLeNET programme, part of the Learning and Skills Network’s mobile learning initiative. In total, it has provided 21,000 learners (mostly post-14) with mobile phones and other handheld technologies, and is expanding.

Sheffield College received a grant of £300,000 to be invested in mobile equipment, including 200 smart phones, and the devices have revolutionised learning even more than anticipated. Hair and beauty students are able to look up hairstyles online when they’re in the salon, take photos of their work and then post them online to receive feedback. Animal and husbandry students can take quick notes on their phone while doing fieldwork, or if they want further information about something technical they don’t understand, they can look it up online.

For a vocational, ICT specialist college, using mobile phones is seen as a pragmatic, common-sense approach. “Whether they can or can’t be trusted (to use phones), when they get into the real world, they’ll need it,” says Mr Pickersgill. Ideally, he would like pupils to be able to access the internet all over the school “just like we would if we want to work in Starbucks or even McDonald’s”, in order to give them a sense of the real, working world.

The government technology agency, Becta, seems to agree. It recommends a “gradual adoption” of mobiles until their use is “as natural as any other technology” employed in lessons. According to a report the agency published at the start of this year, secondary schools only have on average a laptop for every 61.4 pupils and a desktop computer for every 4.3 pupils. As phones become an essential piece of kit for young people, and as the technological capabilities of phones expand, why wouldn’t schools take advantage of free resources?

At King James’s School in Knaresborough, Paul Walters, the school’s ICT development manager, decided to capitalise on the resources that pupils were carrying around with them everyday. “The last poll I did, 98 per cent of our pupils had a mobile phone anyway, so it seemed to me ridiculous to try and ban them,” he says. “It’s a piece of technology that kids live by - they’re never without it - so it feels artificial to prevent them from having it. It’s just a part of their life.”

In Mr Walters’s opinion, the last thing schools want is for the “rabble- rousers” to be in command of the technology. “At our school, it’s not a case that every kid is walking around with a phone doing what they like with it. For a lot of the time, they’ll be switched off and put away.”

Three years ago, mobile phones had been banned and they were causing disruption. Now that they are permitted, the phones hold less of an attraction to the pupils, and it has proved easier to regulate. “A better argument would be about appropriate use, asking, ‘Why are you doing that with your phone?’ rather than ‘Why do you have your phone?’ I think it depends on your own school circumstances, though. You’ve got to look at your relationship with the kids.”

Teachers have used mobile phones as an aid to take photos of English texts or the whiteboard for future review; timing experiments; downloading and listening to foreign-language podcasts; and recording someone reading a poem for revision. A research report into the MoLeNET programme also noted that a further advantage of mobile phone use in schools is increased communication between teachers and pupils regardless of location, or if pupils can’t attend school for whatever reason.

Yet developing a school culture that encourages pupils to communicate with teachers via mobile phones also has its risks: communicating one-on-one, out of school hours, means that the boundary between teachers and pupils becomes blurred.

When details surrounding the affair between Christopher Reen of Headlands School and one of his pupils became public in September, it emerged that he had sent hundreds of text messages to the schoolgirl, who was not yet 16. In the same month, Helen Goddard, a music teacher, was charged with having a relationship with a pupil during which she had communicated with her regularly via text message. Back in February, James Davies, a Welsh TA, was sentenced to 12 months in prison after sending suggestive text messages and engaging in sexual activity with two schoolgirls.

There is genuine concern that wireless communication can quickly become informal and breach formal rules of interaction between pupils and teachers. But there are ways for this to be avoided while still using mobile phones for learning. The NASUWT, NUT and Becta all advise a whole- school approach to safeguarding teachers’ privacy. For a start, schools should have a system that prevents teachers giving out personal email addresses and mobile phone numbers.

With effective ICT support in schools, these risks can be minimised. At King James’s School, pupils text and Bluetooth the school’s wireless system, so there is no direct pupil-teacher communication. Some schools provide standard phones for teachers’ professional use, so pupils know that any teacher could access it, and individual teachers are unlikely to use it from home.

Bringing mobile phones into the school environment does present a risk, but it is one that has to be tackled and managed, rather than brushed under the carpet. They are here to stay and will only become a more prevalent part of our lives. “Schools are no longer just a building, and learning no longer just takes place between 9am and 3.30pm,” concludes Mr Bray.

Finding comfortable ground between the mobile phone being an essential classroom tool and an offensive weapon, however, may still take some time

Using mobiles for learning

• Identify and support champions - volunteer teachers who are prepared to take some risks.
• Initiate discussions about using mobile phones for learning (perhaps using pupil voice work) and survey ownership, device capability and the ways mobile phones are already being used in the school.
• Involve those who have responsibility for curriculum, student management and technical support to plan how they will be used.
• Provide hands-on, small-scale opportunities for teachers to try out appropriate uses for mobile phones.
• Encourage teachers to design activities that make the learning purpose clear and to anticipate management issues at the classroom level (such as rules and etiquette).
• Inform parents of the learning purposes for mobile phones and involve them in establishing appropriate ownership, management and ethical arrangements.
• Anticipate and address technical issues ranging from battery-charging to network access, security and data protection.
• Develop new school policies that shift the focus of attention away from the device to the uses, security and behavioural issues that are the real concern.

Source: Becta (http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk).

Comments

[Ms Beaker]

I slipped on a banana skin on my way into a lesson this afternoon, now does that banana skin qualify as a "potentially offensive weapon"? and is that same banana skin is absolutely no use whatsoever in my classroom, of course not!
A mobile on the other hand... records audio, images, video clips, operates as a calculator, stopwatch...
Ollie, I agree with you 100% on the points you have made regarding use of mobiles in the classroom. Keep up the excellent work on your blog.

[Mobile Phone TV]

If it is thought to be used as educational purposes yes it should be embraced, but if it is missused, it should be thought otherwise.

[Mark Geary]

Lots of uses for simple cell phones and smart phones, but it is expensive for schools to pay for the service.
Some ways simple text messaging can be used here:
http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/mgeary/vita/cellphone-inservice.pdf

and some of my experiences using cellphones in the classroom with HIGHLY at-risk students at a charter HS here:
http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/mgeary/vita/cell_phones.pdf