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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.
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
I think sending texts during class on a basic cellphone is less distracting than a smartphone tied into dozens of apps and games. If you've ever tried to have a conversation with a child while they were playing an addictive mobile game, you'd know how little of what you say to them that they retain.
If kids are playing mobile games during class, it is effectively the same as not showing up to class at all.
“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...
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."
I teach at the university level (upper level undergraduate course) and I am shocked at the number of students who simply do not show up to class and of those that do show up the number that spend the entire period playing games on their phones or computers.
I personally don't care, as at that level they are grown ups and can make their own decisions. However, I do make sure to tell them several times in the first few lectures that three will be material discussed in lecture and that will appear on the exams even though it is not in the text. Usually by about the third or fourth week of the term I can tell which students will be in A/B/C/F territory for each exam. The tiresome part for me is having to deal with the whiners who think they deserved a better grade. My response to them is always, "I grade very leniently, so if anything, your grade is a rather charitable reflection of the amount effort you put into the course."
Being someone who has a limited ability to multi-task, and recognizing my own limits, I can tell you that the vast majority of people that think they can multi-task greatly overestimate their ability. In fact, the younger they are, the more they tend to overestimate how good they are at multitasking.
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.
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.
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.
I teach at the university level (upper level undergraduate course) and I am shocked at the number of students who simply do not show up to class and of those that do show up the number that spend the entire period playing games on their phones or computers.
A good buddy of mine was a University prof. He, too, allowed students to make their own decisions regarding their effort. The one difference is that he kept attendance (and attentiveness) records, specifically to deal with one scenario. All too often, adult students would bring in their angry parents who had footed the bill for a bad grade from what the student claimed was an "unfair teacher". After getting the adult student's permission to discuss the issue in front of the parent, he was generally able to change the entire discussion simply by showing the attendance records to the parents.