Can Cellphones Be Educational Tools?

By Katherine Schulten September 20, 2010 4:49 am

In this weekends special education issue of the Sunday Magazine, an article

about cellphones quotes a father describing why he doesnt want his 11-year-old
son, Andreas, to have one: Its distracting; its a diversionHe needs to be
concentrating on his schoolwork. The article then goes on to describe ways in
which schools and students might use cellphones for teaching and learning. Do
you have a cellphone? Does it distract you from your schoolwork? What might
you say to convince your parents and/or teachers that cellphones can be
educational tools?

In Dial-a-Class, Elizabeth Green writes:

At [a free camp held at the New York Hall of Science in Queens this
summer]children used Nexus One smartphones, and with the help of
probes that zipped bluetooth signals to the phones, the children tested the
air for carbon dioxide, particulate matter and noise pollution. Andreass
job was to use his phone to measure contaminants from idling buses and
vans. (New York City requires drivers to turn off their engines when they
stop for any significant period near a school.) Andreas and his team found
buses idling for as long as 14 minutes.

The project was part of an experiment by the New Youth City Learning
Network, which takes as a premise that most children already exist in a
digital world. The network is strongly interested in mobile devices:
Anytime-anywhere-anyhow learning is how its co-founder, Diana
Rhoten, describes it. You cant do that stuck to your desktop.

Other new mobile applications include a tool called NOAH that lets
you take cellphone pictures of bugs and trees and then sends back an
 identification of the exact type in as little as 24 hours and one that provides
a similar service for historical landmarks, a result of a partnership between
the History Channel and Foursquare.

Students: Tell us how you feel about the use of cellphones as educational
tools whether in or out of the classroom.How could your teachers use them
during lessons? How could you or do you use them on your own for learning?
If you have a cellphone, do you agree that it can distract you from your
schoolwork?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your
first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that
include a last name.

Teachers: Here are ten ways to teach with this feature.

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