Week 11: BYOD, Mobile Learning, Phones

James' website (http://byodmusic.com/) was super cool for learning about practical online resources for music education. These include music-making and theory resources! Highly recommend ! :D

The Mobile Phone Ban: Good or Bad??? (Is this fact-checked?)

NSW schools have officially made this a thing this year. Yes, lots of parents are thinking "finally!" and the system will tell us that it is "evidence-based" strategy to help students with grades and mental health. However, when we actually look at the research, it just tells us a range of opinions - some for the ban, some against, and some neutral. So if the research is telling us nothing, what are the real human experiences that are happening right now? Well, over 80% of parents are FOR the ban whereas most students aren't. 

Our world is becoming more and more digital, but banning phones is like taking a step backward. If education is meant to prepare students for the future, isn't it right that technology and learning should go hand-in-hand in such a digitised age? Schools have outright banned phones, deeming them as an outright hazard to our children's mental and academic wellbeing. By the same measures, they have limited phones to just three letters - B-A-D, and simultaneously ignored its potential educational benefits. Instead, it might be better to work with students (in looking at mobile phones as a resource that is most available to the majority of them) and think forward (about the inevitability of technology forevermore), in order to change the meaning and purpose of the smart phone into something positive and educational. Technology is a powerful tool, but I think the system is forgetting that we have the power to wield it in various ways. 

For example, phones can be use to access educational apps and collaborative tools. We can simultaneously teach about responsible use of these technologies, which will practically work in conjunction with 'life-ready' programs some schools may already have.

Yes, students are less distracted without phones at school, but are they more engaged? Are they more prepared for the digital future? Does the decision get the best of both sides? These are questions that all authorities - the education system, parents, and teachers - should be asking before making such a pivotal decision.

The highschool I went to in Southwest Sydney, was one of the first schools to implement this approach, in late 2019, through Yondr Pouches (students put their phone in a pouch which is magnetically locked for the day. Then at home time, the pouch can be unlocked by the same magnet at the school gates).

Personally, students like myself who had never gotten into the habit of using our phones at school or were already performing well or in the Gifted and Talented programs, did not have a problem with this - From my perspective, if students want to commit to their studies, they will. However if they don't already value their education, nothing, even a phone-ban, will benefit them educationally. Students at my high school still found a way to use their phones at school (e.g. by not putting their phone in the pouch, having secret pockets in jackets, and having their laptop/ iPad linked with their phone, etc). 

Getting students to be focussed and engaged in class is already linked with classroom management and lesson planning, so banning phones does not necessarily correlate with increased participation in class, especially if there are many ways other than using phones for students to be disengaged, disruptive, or simply not learning. 

From my experience, phone bans had also strained the relationship between students and teachers. Sometimes, the principal's office was full of students who had been caught using their phones, but that just meant more strain for the principal rather than the students themselves, who were already used to school punishment since primary school. 

Additionally, students in low socioeconomic schools such as my high school, had many other reasons for attaining low grades, not due to phone use in class, such as students' exposure to daily adversity with food and housing insecurity, family issues, exposure to violence and crime, adverse childhood experiences, stress, economic discrimination/ prejudice (and lack of knowledge on how to overcome this), etc, IN ADDITION to lack of access to enriching educational resources and opportunities such as excursions/ incursions, learning programs, facilities, equipment, teachers, etc.

It is such a shame that, considering the lack of educational resources in low SES schools, (we had iPads and computer labs but the limited quantity meant that they were always booked out), my high school had failed to consider the circumstances their students were in, as well as what a asset phones could be as a pathway to more engaging and enriching education.