Should cell phones be allowed in Piedmont High School? Although there should be regulations to this allowance, I believe they should be allowed because cell phones have many uses that may prove to be helpful to students. For example, my laptop crashed recently while I was in school. The only way I could access my assignments and reminders was through my cell phone. Some may argue that cell phones are only a distraction. A lot of students at Piedmont High School play on their phones during lessons. This causes the teacher to stop class to tell the student to put their phone away.
At the same time, it is the students fault if they miss important information due to them using their cell phone. Allowing cell phones in class will tech responsibility by giving them a choice of when to use it. “More than one third of teens with cellphones admit to having stored information on them to look at during a test or texting friends about answers. ” Cheating is a real problem when it comes to cell phones in the class room. According to this article, many students do not even believe that texting their friend’s answers is cheating.
They simply consider it helping one another (Miners). While one third of students admit to cheating, what about the other two thirds? Why should they be punished for being responsible with their phones? If we regulate the use of phones, cheating can be mostly prevented. During tests, the teacher can walk around the room to ensure the students are not using their phones to text answers, or look up information to cheat. This brings me to a strong point: most kids own a smartphone. This means they have access to the internet wherever they go, including school.
Phones can be used by students to access information they need for assignments. If they are assigned a research paper, they may be able to do all of their research without using a desktop computer or a laptop. This is very helpful for people who do not own or have access to a computer during school. Phones can also be used by teachers to engage the students. For example, “Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any languages, on any device, for all ages (Kahoot! )! In my senior English class we played Kahoot! almost every day.
Our teacher would create her own set of questions based off our lesson at the time through the app. The app would then create the round and give us a pin to enter in order to join the game. The app would have the question on the top of the screen with four choices below. Whoever answers the correct answers the fastest gains points. The person with the most points at the end wins. Kahoot! is just one of the many interactive learning applications available to both teachers and students.
Another way for teachers and students to interact is through Remind101. “Remind is a communication tool that helps teachers connect instantly with students and parents. Send quick, simple messages to any device (remind). ” All through high school I used Remidn101 to keep up with announcements from my teachers and coaches. My coach would send us a message every day to tell us where to go for sports. Sometimes she would tell us to go to her classroom and some days we were in the gym. Remind101 eliminated a lot of confusion that would have occurred had we not known where to go.
Teachers can reach out to students during school and relay any information they might have forgotten to state in class. This helpful tool relieves a lot of stress off of students who have to keep up with seven classes every day. Stress is a roadblock in academic success. “Students often reported that happiness, or positive feelings like enjoyment or fun, supported their schoolwork. One student shared, “In school I feel happy and accepted, which allows for a fun and free learning experience. ” Yet another explained, “I always feel pushed to do my best when I have a project that I find to be really interesting and fun. (Hinton). ”
We can make students happier with a more interactive teaching methods. In a study done at Carnegie Mellon University they found that interactive activities are “six times more likely to help students learn (Gorman). ” Why ban phones from classrooms when we can utilize their features to create a enjoyable learning environment for students? If we utilize the applications available to us, we will be able to make school more fun. Instead of dreading going to class, kids might even be excited to go to school knowing they are walking in able to use their lifelines.
