Yes, I'm sure there are positive uses of phones in a classroom, but in general they're a net negative. I agree with
this article completely:
Of all the places where a mobile phone does not belong -- at the dinner table, near a steering wheel, in the hands of a president
before 8 a.m. -- close to the top of the list is in the classroom. In
the last five years, however, many large school districts in the U.S.
have lifted their restrictions on smartphones. They'll come to regret
it.
Research shows that mere proximity to smartphones contributes to sloppy work, reduced concentration and lower problem-solving capacity. (Phones also facilitate cheating.) College students who don't bring their mobile phones to class score a full grade higher than those who do. A study
of 91 high schools in the U.K. found that students in schools that
imposed strict limits on mobile phones saw test scores improve by 6.4
percent of a standard deviation -- and improvement was highest among
low-achievers.
While 6.4% of a standard dev is nothing to text home about (see what I did there?!), classrooms are not the place for phones.
It almost goes without saying that, just as surely as they once passed
notes in class (does anyone still do that?) kids will find a way around
the rules. Schools are perfectly free to acknowledge the difficulty of
the challenge they face. What they cannot and should not do is surrender
to it.
1 comment:
Go look at the book called "The Shallows." It has all the research and data. In the UK they are actually researching if phone access in teens is an addiction. I am frankly so tired of it I could scream. The lack of attention to detail and focus is jarring.
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