Cell phones are NOT the problem

TL;DR:

• New technologies & methods have always been resisted, especially in education.
• Students starting kindergarten now will live into the year 2100.
• Technology makes teaching and learning easier and better.
• Lots of apps support student learning, creativity, & communication.
• Passing notes, spacing out, & skipping class were the cell phones of the past.
• Cell phones are a part of the "real world."
• Proactively address cell-phone use & etiquette
• Explicitly teach phone etiquette and active listening behaviors
• Deliberately integrate cell phones into your teaching & learning strategies
• Create an expectation in the classroom that students are responsible for their learning
• Address cyberbullying and mental health issues head on
• Create balance and options, i.e. personalize, student learning
• Don't cripple the future by irrationally holding on to the past.

Jonathan Haidt just dropped an exquisitely well-researched article in the Atlantic entitled "Get Phones Out of Schools Now."  He sites several studies linking student cell phone usage, even simply possession, to a decrease in cognitive function, decreased academic performance, and decreased social awareness.  He also outlines several studies that show the correlation between social media and an increase in anxiety, depression, self-harm, & suicidal ideation in children.  Along with the recently published advisory from the Surgeon General, this article will probably raise the war banners of many a parent & educator sick of fighting with their kids about their phones.

I would like to point out that these issues are not the fault of the technology, the are the fault of the adults in charge of the children who are using the technology.

This tension between new technologies and public opinion in education is nothing new.  When Maria Montessori opened her first school for young children in 1907 which encouraged play and exploration, the dominant educational philosophy at the time was that the devil must be beaten out of children before they could learn to be proper humans.  When John Dewey published Democracy and Education in 1916 promoting public education in preserving and promoting an egalitarian and functional democracy, education was still viewed as a mechanism for indoctrinating the children of immigrants or a social stepping stone for the financial elite with few options in between.  The proliferation of literacy in ancient Greece was met by Plato in the Pheadrus as "a recipe not for memory, but for reminder."  He believed that reading would "implant forgetfulness" into the souls of students.

On one hand, education is a rapidly evolving science.  The MRI has allowed us to witness the physical manifestation of learning occur in the brain of children in real-time.  Access to classrooms around the world and modern data collection and analysis methods, like those of John Hattie, give educators insights into ways to fine-tune their teaching and enhance student learning to an elite level.  On the other hand, the vast majority of people have gone to school and all of them have an opinion about what school should look like...  And usually it looks like how they went to school, 20 to 40 years ago.

Tony Wagner, one of my most beloved educational gurus, reminds us, in Dewey-esque fashion, to prepare today's students for their future, not for our past.  He reminds us that a kindergartener in 2023 graduates from high school in 2036 and retires in 2093.  Read that again:  our five-year-olds will probably live into the next century!

As the 2022 Alaska Society for Technology in Education's Teacher of the Year, I'm not going to play shy about my enthusiastic embrace of technology, all technology, in education.  I am a tech enthusiast, not because I'm a prolific computer science teacher or IT hack, because I'm not; I embrace technology in my classroom because my gig is hard, I have extremely rigorous expectations of my students, and I am, fundamentally, a lazy person who prefers reading pulp fiction and playing video games to work.  Technology enables me and empowers my students to achieve high levels of competency and quality in the classroom with a minimum of blood, sweat, and tears.

Last year I was responsible for teaching every subject to 37 students ranging from kindergarten to 11th grade.  I was able to split the elementary out and put them under the direction of my instructional aide midway through 1st quarter, but that still left me with 17 kids from 6th-11th grades.  How else would my aide and myself have tackled high quality, personalized instruction for our students without integrating technology into our classrooms?

My students worked on their digital portfolios, compiling evidence of their learning, reflecting on their assessment scores, learning to create and curate digital media including screencasts, infographics, and animations.  I taught them to use ChatGPT and they began applying for grants, writing their legislators on issues of personal interest, & assessing their own writing, looking for ways to improve.

Check out John Spencer's blog on portfolios.

In my classroom, cell phones are a nearly universally used tool for learning, engagement, & data collection.  Students snap pictures of posters & drawing to add to their portfolios.  They use them as a second screen to research as they write.  They use them to ask me questions that they're embarrassed to ask out loud.  

Students use their cell phones to collect and add media to their Google Drive, making it easier to transfer files onto their portfolios or emails rather than waiting for bulky uploads and downloads. Students use their cell phones for innovative and creative presentations using apps like Canva & Visme.  Students engage with learning and each other on their cell phones using collaboration apps like Jamboard & Padlet. Students use their cell phones to access educational apps like Sora & Duolingo.  Students use their cell phones to work on their homework when they don't have internet access at home and their hotspots (if they have unlimited data) when our dodgy Alaskan internet goes out at school.

I have a couple of students who fit the profile created by Haidt in his Atlantic article.  They sneak texts and social media, usually behind the upraised screens of their laptops.  They struggle to get their work in and seem disconnected from the classroom and their learning much of the time.  The parents of these students have cited "the phones" in my classroom as being the reason why their students struggle in my class.  

I would point out that "the phones" in my classroom are one of the reasons why the rest of my students are so successful.  I would also point out that students who fit the disconnected and unsuccessful profile when I was in high school were busy passing notes and/or whispering in the back and/or staring out a window and/or skipping class.  I would posit that a lack of engagement in the learning is the problem, not the technology at hand.

The reality is: personal computing, social media, & mobile communication technology, all wrapped together into a smart phone, is here to stay.  Likely, as advances in AI and miniaturization continue, they will become more ubiquitous and integrated into our every day lives.  Our jobs as parents, policy makers, and most especially as educators, is not to restrict and inhibit.  It is to inform and empower our students to manage the reality in which they will live, work, & raise their own children.  I hear a lot of talk about how schools don't prepare children "for the real world."  Guess what?  Cell phones are part of the real world.

Here are some ideas for building a culture of wellness and learning around cell phone usage in your classroom:

• Explicitly teach phone etiquette and active listening behaviors-  Do your students know when it is or isn't appropriate to check their phones?  What does phone usage look like in their homes?  What should it look like in a professional setting?  Have a conversation with your students about professionalism and manners.  Set expectations with the group and post them in your classroom.

• Deliberately integrate cell phones into your teaching & learning strategies-  Use QR codes to link worksheets and presentations to digital access and enrichment opportunities.  Push out assignments and feedback via digital apps that can be used on mobile devices.  Bring caregivers into the conversation with access to communication and learning.  Force students to normalize using their phones as a tool and not just as a toy.

• Create an expectation in the classroom that students are responsible for their learning- I train my students to look up words and facts that they don't know or don't understand before they ask me.  I explicitly teach online research strategies and how to recognize good sources from bad sources.  They rely on their phones to fact check and look up unfamiliar vocabulary.

• Address cyberbullying and mental health issues head on- many teachers shy away from discussing social-emotional learning with their students.  They themselves are unfamiliar with best practice and feel unqualified to guide students.  My answer to that is that you don't need to be a doctor to remind people to stay hydrated, you don't need to be a dentist to remind people to brush their teeth, and you don't need to be a therapist to remind people to be nice to themselves and others.  PBIS, Sources of Strength, and Zones of Regulation are my go-to sources for concrete wellness and behavioral support strategies.

• Create balance and options, i.e. personalize, student learning- Universal Design for Learning was written into the 2016 Federal ESSA guidelines.  Smartphone technology, along with other technology, can create more of a personalized environment but don't shy away from providing non-digital or analog options for your students.  With all of the tech integration in my classroom, you wouldn't believe the amount of paint, glue, & cardboard I go through when my students go into project mode.  And that's just fine.

As Frederick Lane, author of Cybertraps for Educators and my favorite technology doomsayer likes to point out, "It's the wild west out there."  Technology and innovation are changing very quickly and we are, right now, establishing the rules of the road for ourselves and our learners.  Let's not cripple our future by irrationally holding on to the past.