Cellphones and Social Justice

The final two debates for this semester were asking about two different things, should cellphones be banned in classrooms, and do educators have the responsibility to use social media to promote social justice? These were some great discussions and although the debate about cell phones went basically one way, the discussion about social justice seemed pretty split. But before I talk about that I am going to start with the first debate topic asking if cell phones should be banned in classrooms.

It is no surprise that in a class all about educational technology, everyone either voted that cell phones should be banned in grades K-8, or just allowed in all age groups. And this is alright, I agree that cell phones should be allowed in classrooms. There is a lot of benefits to having your cell phone with you. Some examples in the articles listen were in case of emergencies or being able to use it for research. Coming from a small town, if we were not in the computer lab, we were not going to be doing any research, but we could because we had our phones. Coming from a small town also influences my opinion because it is not like we could use our cell phones when we weren’t supposed to. There is maybe 20 of us in the class, the teacher can see when we are on our phones. I feel like the problem is less about allowing cell phones, and more about controlling the classroom. That may be easier said than done and some students may not listen. But in my opinion, students should be allowed to have their phones, and than have something be done if they cannot handle that responsibility.

Should educators use technology to promote social justice? This was a quite intriguing question and for the first time in all of these debates, I was not sure what side I was on when we started. However I do really like what we discussed, it is different when someone is always posting on social media. I personally don’t post hardly ever on social media, so personally I do not post about social justice. However, when someone is posting every day, and a problem like black lives matter comes up, I feel that they should make some sort of post to support the cause. Otherwise it feels like you are avoiding or ignoring that issue. I feel that with the wording given, educators are not responsible for using social media to promote social justice. However, we should be teaching students about social justice. We can do our part by educating students, and giving them the information they need to promote social justice.