Cellular phony in class rooms! Permissible???

“Get out of my class”!!! Those were the last words my friend heard from our teacher, yesterday in the class.  He was caught playing with his cell phone rather than concentrating on the white board. This blog of mine pertains to the sizzling topic of use of mobiles phones in class rooms.

One of my respected teachers, back in college days used to quote that,” One good reason why computers do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone.” And one good reason that why I never agreed him was that whenever he was off duty, he was found to be engaged in his cell phone. Well I have to satisfy myself, someway! So without much ado, I will get straight to pros and cons of cellular phony in classrooms and probably get to better conclusion in the end.

It is not at all surprising that mobiles remained banned in secondary and higher secondary schools in most countries of the world ‘as technology is an unlucky maid and seldom accepted immediately’. But in 2009, a certain research based studies were carried out to find the practical application of mobile devices. A project, TACCLE Project, particularly studied the use of mobiles as a learning tool in classrooms for the students of secondary and intermediate classes. What distinguished their work is that they went for the practical research, observed and interviewed teachers and students in the institution where mobiles are allowed. And of course where the dialogue; “get of my class” is not too often heard by the students.

Well here I’m not bounding myself to only schools, colleges or universities. I am talking about general use of mobiles in classrooms. Mobile phones with simple devices such as camera and recorders can be very useful in life science classes, lab experiments where pupils can take pictures or even make video of the experiment and can memorize it easily. Mobiles can be used to enhance the creativity of young minds by formulating best text SMSs, twitter messages, text blog or even picture blogs. Students can build their confidence by asking those questions which they find difficult or they are embarrassed to ask in the class publicly. Through SMS polling, students can send immediate messages to teachers for formative assessment. Can be used as a dictionary, spell checker, thesaurus and as an encyclopedia.

Engineering and medical students can use them in various beneficial ways during the classrooms, by referring quickly the periodic tables, log tables, plotting graphs through various graphical applications.

            If students are guided and educated about the proper use of mobile phones, it can be used as a learning tool. Pupils should be coached for a constructive use of cell phones, for acquisition of knowledge on a quick basis. They can be taught the ways of avoiding the abuse of mobile devices such as net safety, phony identities and cyber crimes.

 Thank you very much, I hope my blog was helpful. Don't forget to leave a comment below. Special thanx to the guys starring in the pic, Syed Haroon fida,Muhammad hamid and mujtaba nawaz(from left to right).
Reference of the 3rd and last paragraph: from Miss Raheela's article in The NEWS.