Interestingly, I’ve found (at least in our District) that many teachers actually don’t know what policies are in place. Case in point: myself!

I created the Pay Attention video last spring because I think there are many things that we can do as teachers to better engage our students. One of the ways I think we can do that is through mobile phone and iPod use – academically, in the classroom (again, if we can’t beat ‘em, why don’t we join ‘em). Ironically, when I created the video, I didn’t realize that our district actually has a policy BANNING phone use during academic time! Can you believe it (see policy 2-A-7)?

http://tinyurl.com/2yc6v2

Now, I realize that my brain is small. Nevertheless, I have been teaching in this district for nearly 10 years. Why wouldn’t I have known about such a policy?

As a result of the attention that Pay Attention has received, I will be (and have been) campaigning to have our District’s policy slightly modified (hopefully to look a little more like 2-A-8) – the process is a very SLOOOOW one, at best, but hopefully we can make headway.

To me it is about an attitude change – my students range in age from 16 upwards. There has been no need to achieve an equilibrium because once I stop enforcing or confiscating phones, there was no longer an issue. Students are acting responsibility – most times they choose to have their phones on silent – if they receive a call and it is important they quickly move out of the room without any disruption.

Same for ipods. Once I used to take offense to ipods – especially if they were wearing them working on the computers. If I can not concentrate listening to music – then how can they. Reality is many of my students concentrate better listening to music.

By changing our attitudes, then we realise that there are so many ways that we can engage and relate better with our students. Think of all the great activities you could do with your groups such as moblogging etc. I love having a chat with my students about which phone they are using and why.

Sue

I’m often working with young people in ‘one-off’ settings, running consultations and events that bring together groups from different schools / out-of-school settings for anything from 1 hour to 2 days. Here we tend to find ‘no mobiles in sessions’ emerges as an early item in group agreements (though quite often suggested by workers rather than young people). It strikes me though, supported by your thinking and experiences above, that there is real value in having a more permissive attitude towards phone and PDA use.

Which is all a pre-amble to asking the questions: how long in your experience does it take to reach an equilibrium with phone use? Do you just let classes find the balance for themselves? Or do you introduce set guidelines for phone use?