Jump back to September 2010 or fast forward to September 2022. Despite being on the agree side of the cell phone debate I truly am upon the fence. If I was to go back to 2010, why that date I don’t really know but I was in my 7th year of teaching and at that time students seemed to have better cell phone etiquette than they do in 2022. They respected classroom rules and didn’t push the boundaries. Students understood that there was a time and place for cell phone use and it wasn’t during school hours. Teachers didn’t have to discipline a child every five minutes for cell phone use as they were engaged with the classroom task and not mesmerized by a game or message. Spring forward to June 2022 and I want to honestly throw out every cell phone in site. What on earth happened? How did we create such an imbalance? Is it possible to turn back time and start again? If I new in 2010 what 2022 was going to look like than just maybe I wouldn’t be on the fence. Oh Cher “If I could turn back time” – what a good tune!
If we knew the impact of internet and smart phones on mental health 15 years ago we might have reconsidered our great desire to pursue our personal use with them and our desire to integrate them into our classrooms. Just like CFC’s and Nicotine – if we could have only predicted the future!
I found the discussion about “nomophobia” from the agree side of the debate quite interesting as I hadn’t heard that term used before. The article that was provided to us to read was full of quality information about the topic. I found it truly interesting to learn the following about nomophobia.
- the fear of not being able to use ones phone or the apps on the phone
- leads to other concerns of stress, anxiety and depression
- threaten classroom learning because students have less ability to focus on a task
- the closer the phone is the less cognitive functioning the students have
- the noises of other phones in the room are even distracting to students
- students feel when the don’t have there phone they are loosing out connectedness with their peers
Despite knowing that I can’t turn back time – I would like to determine how we can alter the future. I believe that smart phones can take up space in our classrooms if we aggressively work at ensuring that phones are to be in classrooms for learning purposes only. As Sam Kerry addresses on his YouTube channel the benefits out way the drawbacks.
So let challenge each other to be a united front. Let’s join together in recognizing the benefits of smart phones in our classrooms but lets stay united in our push to improve etiquette and proper usage. What I say goes in my room should also go in your room. We need to eliminate the good cop bac cop scenarios that already exist in our schools. We all just might need to become cell phone police.
Leona – I agree with your stance on this…. even though we were on the disagree side, I struggle with this topic immensely. Although there are numerous advantages to having these devices in your classrooms, there still are some extremely glaring issues with them. These devices are not going anywhere so I guess we may as well try to embrace them and use them to our advantage in the classroom. We as teachers need to set guidelines early and often to help with the incorporation in the classroom.