"Put away your phones.” It is a message many pupils receive when they walk into class. It is easy to see why: students busy texting each other or trying to get to the next level on Angry Birds are not focusing on school work.
In a world where people rarely sit through a meal without checking their phones, sending off a quick email, or reading a text, mobile phones are often seen as a distraction from listening and being truly present in a moment.
On the other hand, students forced to put away the technology through which they communicate, collaborate, research and learn outside class are not very engaged in technology-less lecture-style lessons, either.
And so more and more schools find themselves considering ways to productively incorporate mobile phones into the classroom and into lessons. When it comes to anytime, anywhere learning, mobile phones are the one device that typically does travel everywhere a user goes.
And data suggests that more than 75 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds already has a mobile phone (add in iPod touch or other devices, and that number goes up). Think using mobile phones in the classroom seems like a stretch? Consider this:
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