We certainly live in technologically disruptive times. The release of the iPhone at the end of June represented an important step in continuing technological convergence which is bringing powerful, mobile computing and communication power literally into the hands of people around the planet.

Before playing with the iPhone myself in a local AT&T wireless store, I hadn't realized it has a specific application button for watching YouTube videos streaming directly from the Internet. I don't know of a single public school district here in Oklahoma that does NOT block YouTube (All public districts block it.) It's not likely many students will show up for the first day of school in August 2007 holding an iPhone, but the capability which the iPhone represents to access streaming video from the Internet over cellular network connections as well as WiFi connections is VERY challenging to traditional conceptions of teaching and learning.

Traditional teacher-to-student passive learning models have no place for new technologies like laptops or cell phones. As long as the identity of the teacher is defined as the source/fount of knowledge, and the students remain receptacles or sponges to "receive" that knowledge directly from the teacher, digital sources of expert knowledge (or just raw information) will be seen as a distraction, an annoyance, and even a threat by educators, parents, and educational leaders. The sea of information in which we find ourselves today should highlight the importance of educators serving as FACILITATORS of learning, not the singlemost important source of ideas and content knowledge in the classroom. Doing otherwise is analogous to an ostrich which chooses to put its head in the sand at the first sign of danger.

Can cell phones and laptops be used in inappropriate and hurtful ways? Certainly. So can pencils, as Doug Johnson has pointed out in his excellent article from 2005 "A Proposal for Banning Pencils." (PDF) As Doug argued so eloquently, "Ex abusu non arguitur in usum. (The abuse of a thing is no argument against its use.)" When it comes to cell phones and laptops in our classrooms, we need to keep this in mind and help others do the same.

Hanging Scissors

Are students in your classroom permitted to use scissors? Don't you realize the bad choices students could make with scissors to hurt themselves or hurt others? Of course you do. That is why as teachers, we enforce (and encourage the other learners in the classroom to help enforce) a culture which is intolerant of unsafe or hurtful uses of scissors. No one (regardless of age) is permitted to run with scissors. Use of scissors to threaten or injure others is not tolerated. We keep scissors available in our classrooms to use at need, but we recognize the menu of uses for that tool must be limited by the attitudes, language, and actions of multiple stakeholders in the educational learning culture, not merely the teacher of record in the classroom.

I sense many school leaders and even educational technology conference coordinators are not "ready" to hear the message about how cell phones can be used to engage students in the learning process, facilitate the creation of visual knowledge products utilized to demonstrate mastery of required knowledge and skills, and appropriately provide a virtual "window" into the learning taking place inside the classroom for parents and other learners located elsewhere. Most people are much more comfortable banning cell phones and iPods, blocking all websites which permit social networking, and striving to keep other digital devices outside the classroom instead of figuring out how these devices can be used in authentically engaging ways to improve opportunities for learning.

Teacher Lecture with Chalkboard

There are good reasons for this common reactionary approach to disruptive technologies like cell phones and laptops, but those reasons should not be used as a justification for adopting a completely "statist" approach to technology. (In the parlance of Virginia Postrel, a "statist" is someone who opposes all changes to the status quo.) Cell phones have been and will continue to be used in inappropriate and hurtful ways. We've all likely read or heard about cases where someone uses a cell phone to take a locker room picture and then share it with the world. The recent NPR story "Cell Phones a New Vehicle for Violence in Iraq" points out multimedia messaging is not just being used as a weapon of terror in schools. We are living in a dynamic era of technological development, but the ways people choose to use the technological tools and resources at their disposal defines whether or not that development can be accurately termed "progress" or anarchic mayhem.

In the last month, two state-level educational conference proposal review committees have turned down my requests to present a workshop titled "Cell Phones for Learning." Of course every conference has a justifiable right to choose presentations their committees determine would be of highest interest to attending educators, and I am NOT whining here about not having a proposal accepted. I am, however, wondering out loud if the broader education community (as well as the narrower educational technology conference community) is "ready" for the message that we should use available technologies (including cell phones) to improve teaching and learning?

Karen Montgomery recently shared a workshop in Missouri titled "Using Mobile Phones to Learn" which was VERY well received by teacher participants. I think the time for MORE presentations, workshops, and conversations about these topics has arrived.

The Internet's world-wide web is not going away, and neither are cell phones or online social networks. Rather than build sea walls and attempt to fight the tide, we need to work together to learn how to live with changing tides and even surf the waves. We shouldn't opt to "cave in" to media culture and attempt to transform our classrooms into non-stop edutainment, but neither should we adopt a purely reactionary/statist approach which rejects all proposals for using new digital technologies for learning.

Fancy Cell Phones

Are many of the students you're teaching bringing cell phones to school? It's time we asked the kids to get them out and use them for learning, rather than just banning them for use at school where more relevant work is required like filling out worksheet study guides based on a textbook that is five years old. Technology resources like cell phones and Wikipedia should challenge us to rethink assessments and our identities as teacher-leaders in the classroom. As teachers we're needed more than ever, but the landscape of learning has changed markedly. Our behavior should change as well.

By Wesley Fryer

From Techlearning.com

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