Cell phones in the Classroom

I personally agree with the no cell phone policy. When I was younger and in high school, I obviously wanted cell phones to be allowed in school. However I don’t think that it’s fair for cell phones to be allowed for school use. Not every student has a cell phone, and for those students who do have phones, not all of them have internet capabilities. So, I don’t understand how schools would make it possible for schools to allow cell phones to help with work. Personally I think that in a way, it could be considered discrimination.

In my classroom I don’t want to see cell phones. I understand if they are quickly being used as a calculator or if a student tells me that they are expecting a text or call from their parent. But for me those are the only exceptions. I don’t see the reason for texting a friend during class while the friend is in class as well. I wouldn’t eliminate them all together but only for certain exceptions. Im not sure of my cell phone policy yet. I have a sister who works at Clackamas high school and their policy is if the student is caught with a cell phone with the intent to use then the phone gets taken from the student and the parent has to come and pick it up at the end of the day. This rule seems a little intense to me, however, it would depend on the rules of the school that I’m working at.

I personally don’t plan on incorporating cell phones into my classroom so therefore I haven’t been thinking of ways to incorporate them into my classroom. Some suggestions in the readings included using them for interviews, audioblogging, internet, calculators, etc. Some teachers could be up to this idea of cell phones in the classroom, I’m just not one of them.