50 Reasons It’s Time For Smartphones In Every Classroom
33. Students can have choice in terms of apps, platforms, social channels, assessment style, and so on. Smartphones can support this.
It’s Time For Smartphones In Every Classroom
by Terry Heick
There are many ways to use a smartphone in the classroom, but it continues to be a touchy subject.
Privacy, equity, bandwidth, lesson design, classroom management, theft, bullying, and scores of other legitimate concerns continue to cloud educationโs thinking about how to meaningfully integrate technology in the learning process.
To be clearโlearning can happen in the absence of technology. Integrated poorly, technology can subdue, distract, stifle, and obscure the kind of personal interactions between learner, content, peer, and performance that lead to learning results.
But increasingly we live in a world where technology is deeply embedded into everything we do. Thinking about it simply in terms of โdigital literacyโ puts you about 5 years behind the curve. Itโs really much more than thatโless about being connected, and more about being mobile.
There will be growing pains, and Iโm sure educators that have brought in BYOD programs into their school can come up with 50 reasons it wonโt work. But most of those 50 are a product of the continued poor fit that exists between schools and communitiesโthe system and the humans it serves.
Soon, the argument wonโt be about smartphones, but rather steeper technologyโcontact lenses that record, and bendable, wearable mobile hardware that offers AI-produced haptic feedback to guide how students research, skim through information, or connect through media (all media will be social and will make an iPhone look like an abacus.
This an argument less about smartphones, and more about meaningfully embracing whatโs possible in 2022 and beyondโa stance that could see education finally take a position of leadership in the use of technology to support how we make sense of the world around us.
50 Reasons Itโs Time For Smartphones In Every Classroom
1. Students could Google anythingโjust like you do.
2. Used, theyโre incredibly affordable.
3. They can therefore reduce rather than increase equity and access.
4. Self-directed learning will be a core tenet of future learning. This means technology, and the most mobile, affordable, and accessible kind of technology is a used smartphone.
5. Another core tenet of future learning? Mobility. Which requires mobile technology.
6. Texting in class is a classroom management problemโor even a matter of instructional design. It is not a technology problem.
7. Related gadgets like wearable technology are already here. Smartphones are already dated technology, but they can serve as a bridge to the near future
8. Workflow in classrooms is now based primarily on physical media, which often means shoehorning in technology. Itโs time for the reverse
9. Students can create their own workflows.
10. The hardware isnโt overwhelming. Technology isnโt the point of learning, and should not overwhelm awareness, curiosity, interaction, or critical analysis in favor of mass publishing and communication.
11. Itโs easy to turn them off, put them in airplane mode, etc.
12. Push and location-specific notifications have tremendous potential for personalizing learning.
13. There are privacy and safety issuesโbut not using the phones doesnโt make those issues go away.
14. Geo-tagging, game-based learning, and apps with adaptive learning algorithms that differentiate for youโor for the student, rather.
15. Zoom connects classroomsโas well as Zoom or Crikle or Google Meet or Skype, of course.
16. Students can create their own IT department or tech support teams.
17. Yes, there is a have vs have-nots with BYODโsome students will have better/newer phones than others. Again, this already exists outside the classroom. A student with an โold phoneโ knows they have an old phone and not using it in the classroom doesnโt make them feel any better about that.
18. NFC and related technologies are getting smarter and more integrated into our lives, including beaming almost anything digital from here to thereโto share, broadcast, publish, display anything in real-time.
19. Students can share data, tether, airdrop files, and more.
20. They support project-based learning, game-based learning, sync teaching, and dozens of other related learning trends.
21. File-sharing can be done more seamlessly.
22. QR Codes help accommodate mobile learning
23. Even a disconnected smartphone is 100xs more useful than a calculator.
24. Podcasts (a technology underused in the classroom) can be recorded, shared, broadcast, saved, or socialized anywhere.
25. They can be used as clickers to give teachers real-time data from quick assessments.
26. Backchannel conversations are possible.
27. Augmented reality allows for the overlay of physical environments with real-time data.
28. Voice-recognition and voice-activated apps are getting smarterโand could be a boon for struggling writers.
29. This would decenter the teacher.
30. This would liberate the teacher.
31. Smartphones in the classrooms empower students and relieve teachersโdone properly, of course.
32. Every student has a voice
33. Students can have choice in terms of apps, platforms, social channels, assessment style, and so on. Smartphones can support this.
34. Smartphones can supplement laptops, tablets, and other learning technology.
35. Smartphones can function as a productivity hub for challenge-based learningโreminders, to-do lists, calendar updates, social messaging, emails, etc.
36. And theyโre already in the pockets of most students.
37. Digital citizenship is a perfect segue to teaching human citizenship.
38. Digital literacy is as important as non-digital literacy.
38. Every student using a smartphone would naturally democratize what is otherwise an academic oligarchy.
39. YouTube is the most popular and diverse media channel on the planet. It may be time to let them use it how they want, when they want.
40. Students continuing to learn without access to the hardware and software theyโre accustomed to using on a daily basis only further alienates and discredits schools.
41. Easy, persistent access to their previous thinkingโi.e., digital portfolios.
42. White noise apps to provide background noise for reading and writing.
43. Donโt you stream music while you work? I do. Doesnโt have to be Eminemโcould be Mozart, Gregorian Chants, or white noise.
44. Headphones, earbuds, and other related peripherals are becoming increasingly common–and useful (see #42).
45. Yes, it very well may be that we are becoming addicted to technology as a culture. Banning them in schools while pretending that your classroom is the last bastion for humanity is lunacy.
46. Kindle, iBooks, and other reading apps
47. Access to virtual libraries, museums, networks
48. Reddit and Quora, while full of flaws, are communities that model critical thinking, the nuance of content, and a celebration of learning.
49. Ease of data collection for teachers
50. Itโd immediately disrupt everything from district filters and school policies to the role of students in the learning process, and the transparency of student work and performance in the classroom.
This article was originally written in 2015 and most recently updated in 2021.