Liz Kolb started her education career as a teacher of middle and high school social studies in Wyoming City Schools in Cincinnati. She was also a teacher and technology coordinator at Grandview Heights City Schools in Columbus, where she adamantly opposed cell phones in school until she had an “ah-ha” moment.
She then created and founded the Web site Cell Phones in Learning (www.cellphonesinlearning.com) while writing the book Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education. She just earned a doctorate in education with a focus on learning technologies and is an adjunct professor at Madonna University in Livonia, Mich. Here, Liz answers questions of wary school administrators regarding cell phones in class.
DA: How and when did your enthusiasm for cell phone use in the classroom start?
Kolb: In general, administrators tend to be skeptical of using cell phones in class, just as you once were. What are the reasons are for this, and are any of them valid concerns?
L.K.: There are a few reasons and they are all valid. First, most administrators did not grow up using cell phones in learning; therefore, they do not have a vision of how they could be a learning tool. Since we know from research that teachers often teach the way they were taught, it is no surprise that teachers and administrators are reluctant to integrate students’ everyday technologies. At the same time it is interesting that most educators use cell phones on a daily basis for their own professional or personal organization and management, yet they still have trouble seeing how students could benefit from learning how to use their own cell phones in a productive way.
I call it the Swiss Army knife of education tools.
Second, the media has presented many negative perspectives of teens and cell phones, such as sexting, cheating with cell phones, texting while driving, and using them as a tool of distraction during class time.
Finally there is a fear of the unknown. Administrators are well aware that most students know more about cell phones than they do. Many administrators have never sent a text message, while teens are sending multiple text messages in minutes. Some administrators are fearful of students knowing and understanding something more than they do. Others are fearful of community or parent backlash at using such a controversial tool in school learning. What is interesting about this particular fear is that every teacher I have spoken with who uses cell phones in learning has told me that they have only had positive responses from parents. Some have thanked them for teaching their children about the limitations of their cell phone plan. In addition, using cell phone SMS (or reminder tool) text alerts can be a beneficial way for administrators to communicate efficiently with parents, since many parents are mobile and have a cell phone.
How can administrators promote cell phone use in class while keeping students from unacceptable uses?
L.K.: It’s called mobile literacy education. Because over 70 percent of U.S. schools ban cell phones and the rest often have strict use policies, schools do not educate students on appropriate or inappropriate uses of cell phones. Students have no idea what the lifelong consequences of their casual text messages or mobile photos could be. For example, most students (and adults) do not understand that text messaging, photo or video sharing on cell phones are archived. Cell phone companies have records of every phone call, every text message, every photo or video message sent from and to cell phones. Web sites such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube have records of all images and videos sent to their sites, as well as some ownership over them. Students think of their cell phones as private tools and the messaging as private. Thus, we are hearing about young teens sexting because they think it is a private act. Usually, another child ends up showing sex messages or nude photos to a parent or teacher and that person ends up reporting it to the police. And we are starting to see young teens and preteens being brought up on criminal charges for this. If you ask these students, they will say they thought they were sending a private picture or message to a friend, not child pornography (what some students are being charged with). This is serious. This is a charge that could go on their permanent record. It could have big consequences for their futures, especially in the job market.
The answer is that you don’t just give a teenager keys to a car. There are rules to the road. And 90 percent of teens abide by them when they understand the consequences. So it’s about getting kids to understand that everything you do on cell phones is public, not private, and it can come back to haunt you later in life. And the second issue is that if students are busy using cell phones for educational purposes, there is less of a chance they will use them for inappropriate purposes.
Liz Kolb's Web site, Cell Phones in Learning, features podcasts, product write-ups, blogs and YouTube videos.
Here are some specific inappropriate uses of cell phones. How could administrators handle each of them?
L.K.: Cheating: Some students are using phones to text test answers or even to take photos of exams.
