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Schools Are Giving Up on Smartphone Bans (gizmodo.com)
Bans on phones in schools are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, new research shows. From a report: A survey from the National Center for Education Statistics exploring crime and safety at schools indicates that there is a trend toward relaxing student smartphone bans. The survey reports that the percentage of public schools that banned cell phones and other devices that can send text messages dropped from nearly 91 percent in 2009 through 2010 to nearly 66 percent in 2015 through 2016.
This drop did not coincide, however, with more lenient rules around social media. In 2009 and 2010, about 93 percent of public schools limited student access to social networking sites from school computers, compared to 89 percent from 2015 through 2016. That's likely because these bans aren't lifted in response to student demands to use their electronics during school hours -- they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids.
This drop did not coincide, however, with more lenient rules around social media. In 2009 and 2010, about 93 percent of public schools limited student access to social networking sites from school computers, compared to 89 percent from 2015 through 2016. That's likely because these bans aren't lifted in response to student demands to use their electronics during school hours -- they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids.
That's any cell phone made in the past 20 years, not just a smartphone. Personally, I don't think smartphone bans can be enforced easily. The way to enforce them is via grading. Discuss a topic that's not "in the book." Test students on it. Maybe even discuss different "off-book" topics and give the option of which questions to answer to not penalize absent students, but punish students who are perpetually on their phones and tuned out. "Professor, I should have got an A on this exam, it wasn't in the book..." "Next time, put away the phone."
it'd be nice for my kid to be able to use a backpack to carry her schoolwork in. They aren't even allowed clear backpacks.
Let's go back to sending children to work in coal mines. Their smartphones won't work down there.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We got to actually grow up and enjoy things as a kid, and to learn more quickly (I think) about independence and self sufficiency.
And at the very least....we weren't tracked everywhere, and could get into a bit more mischief and the world didn't end for any of us.
I've recently visiting with friends I've known since I was about 11yrs old, and we were talking old times, our exploits (we still remember some), and decided that some of the shit we pulled back in the day, would have put us on a terrorist watch list today?!?!
Hell, the way our parents let us alone in the neighborhood to run around "unsupervised" would today likely have had us taken by social services and put into freakin' foster care.
I don't get it, but man, I'm sure glad I grew up when I did. I was nice to NOT be in touch, to have an excuse to NOT be reachable by parents, etc.
And most of all....no one generally had a damned camera around to get pictures of you, and publish them where you might not only get into trouble right then....but also to maybe haunt you later in life.
I'm glad I've grown up to see the rise of the internet and lots of tech, but man...I feel for the kids today as that they have lost something....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
As a teacher, I can tell that the main reason for relaxing the cell phone bans is the parents demanding it. the research is in, cell phones detract from learning.
The following is part of a letter I sent to my building administrator on this topic. The first point, that is cut out, but mentioned, had to do with my student to robot ratio.
The second is more generalized, yet it remains a problem. It is the cell phones in the school.
The research done by the London School of Economics showed that the benefit to a cell phone ban was the equivalent to an extra week of instruction. However, even more relevant to our district, is that the gain was driven by low income students. they showed an improvement equal to receiving three extra weeks of instruction per year.
Simply telling the students to put the phones is not enough. A study by the University of Chicago determined that the negative effects of the cell phone are present when the phone is in close proximity, such as in a backpack. When in close proximity, the addictive nature of the phone continues to interfere with the cognitive process.
Based on research, a simple ban of cell phones could improve the students education. In cases where the parent believes that their child needs a phone, and will not be swayed by research, a area of small lock boxes in the office would allow the students to secure their phones at the beginning of the day.
These are two proposals that would increase student engagement and learning.
Here I include summaries and abstracts from recent cell phone research:
a couple of studies that have been completed in an attempt to assess the impact the impact of having cell-phones in school on education.
The first is a study completed by the London School of Economics. Here is the abstract:
This paper investigates the impact of schools banning mobile phones on student test scores. By surveying schools in four English cities regarding their mobile phone policies and combining it with administrative data, we find that student performance in high stakes exams significantly increases post ban. We use a difference in differences (DID) strategy, exploiting variations in schools’ autonomous decisions to ban these devices, conditioning on a range of student characteristics and prior achievement. Our results indicate that these increases in performance are driven by the lowest achieving students. This suggests that restricting mobile phone use can be a low-cost policy to reduce educational inequalities.
Source: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/down...
A more readable summary is provided by CNN:
The authors looked at how phone policies at 91 schools in England have changed since 2001, and compared that data with results achieved in national exams taken at the age of 16. The study covered 130,000 pupils.
It found that following a ban on phone use, the schools' test scores improved by 6.4%. The impact on underachieving students was much more significant -- their average test scores rose by 14%.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/1...
This study was supported by a recent study conducted by the University of Chicago. Further, they determined that the negative effect of the cell-phone were present even if the cell-phone is put away, such as in a backpack. From the Abstract:
Results from two experiments indicate that even when people are successful at maintaining sustained attention—as when avoiding the temptation to check their phones—the mere presence of these devices reduces available cognitive capacity.
Source: http://www.journals.uchicago.e...
I can't imagine the absolute fucking distraction in class that goes on with either SMS, social media, watching kids make a goofy damn face 'snapchatting', etc. As much as I want to dismiss it as back in the day when I'd doodle or sketch nonsense in a notebook while a teacher was droning on, passing notes, counting ceiling tiles or what-the-hell-ever all of us non-millennials did as being just as non-productive, it's a complete different type of blatant disrespect and lack of dedication without being able to 'disconnect' and focus on something other than _you_.
Think public/private school issues are bad, anymore, I wish workplaces would eliminate phone usage from the damn work force, except for under extreme circumstances, where you actually need to use it. I can't even get away from it in meetings or presentations I do at work anymore; there is guaranteed at least one mega-douche with his face buried in his phone not even paying attention (but in a title and position to absolutely the fuck pay attention), then is always the person who has to have things repeated, or burning up questions that were already covered, or whatever waste presented on, the opposite (or nothing) gets done.
Just like most teachers already get paid shit, assuming they are par to upper quality educators and care, it's flat out an extreme waste of their time, expertise, educational background and breath when you can't even get someone to put down a device for 1/16th of their entire day they are awake for that one hour class to be dedicated and open to being taught and educated. We all know, the 15 other slivers of time are 'on that thing' anyway.
"they are bending to the pressure of parents who want to be able to reach their kids." ...during school hours. If they need to reach their kids during school THEN THEY SHOULD CALL THE FUCKING OFFICE, the way it has always been.
At the 90% of schools that "block" social media, I'd say around 90% of the students use a VPN to punch through that noise. I found this out after I found one of my kids, who resisted programs like "Hour of Code" and wouldn't even help his old man maintain the home network, had a system of two VPNs and related AV on his phone to get around his schools' bans on SnapChat and the like. Frankly, I was impressed.
I remember years ago I worked at a place that didn't allow cameras on the property. Cameras in phones were just getting popular at the time. My phone was getting old and unreliable and so I went shopping for a phone without a camera. The guy at the store seemed very confused at this request. We looked through their catalog of phones and I was able to find something suitable, which I bought.
While we were looking for a phone without a camera the sales droid suggested I buy a nicer phone and just punch out the camera lens to render the camera inoperable, so I could find a nicer phone and yet still comply with my employer's demands. I thought the guy was insane to suggest such a thing. How would my employer know the camera was truly inoperable unless there was obvious damage to the phone? In which case I'd have a brand new phone that was intentionally broken. How would I explain this if I ever needed a repair later? "No, I want the phone fixed BUT NOT THE CAMERA IN IT!" How would I know that no other damage was done, and if I did then we are back to fixing the phone but still leaving obvious damage to the camera function.
Weeks after I got my camera-less phone they lifted the ban on phones with cameras. Too many people complained and the company gave in. They just said that getting caught taking a photo on the premises could be grounds for dismissal. That was of course impossible to enforce. They could certainly walk someone out the door for taking pictures of something and posting it on the internet but that's closing the barn door after the horses left.
I later went back to university and had one instructor say during the first class period that anyone using an electronic device during class would be marked as absent that day. That's not just a ban on devices for quizzes and tests but during class discussion. That was the first and last time I saw that happen as every class since would have nearly every student with a laptop or electronic tablet for taking notes, or whatever. Of course some people were just goofing off, like one guy I saw that was watching a soccer game in the middle of class. It's not like people didn't goof off in class before electronics, I remember doing crossword puzzles during lectures.
I remember when pagers were a thing and schools wanted to ban those. They gave up on banning pagers a long time ago too, and not just because they fell out of use. Parents that were able to afford a two-way pager for their kids can have a lot of influence on the schools.
Everything old is new again. History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
And for those of us who were bullied, the bullying typically ended once you left school. When I was in high school and walked in my front door, the bullies couldn't reach me anymore. Nowadays, bullies can still harass people no matter where they are. We had to complain one day when a kid in my son's high school band class took out a cell phone and began taking photos of my son without his - or our - permission. The kid was making fun of my child as he did this so who knows where those photos ended up. Kids today have some really cool new tech to play with that we didn't have growing up, but there's a dark side to all of it as well.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We got to actually grow up and enjoy things as a kid
Implying kids aren't enjoying themselves? Setting garbage bins on fire isn't the only thing people in life can enjoy. And for every miniature terrorist like you (and I for that matter) and your friends there was a cell-phone-child-precursor sitting in their bedroom devouring whole libraries of books in peace or another glued to the telly.
Life isn't about cell phones or fun, it's about many different people having fun in different ways.
We get it Gramps, I didn't see this story tagged, "tell us how much better your childhood was".
Cheap storage VM.