One of the things I would like to do is also one of the things I’m most concerned about.  I want to utilize the technology to which my students already have access: in short, I’d like to use cell phones in the classroom.  I’ve found that a number of my students have smartphones, and there are so many educational apps out there that I could see being particularly interesting and engaging in the classroom.  I’m not going to focus on those here (although if anyone has suggestions for what I should check out, please let me know!) but rather on the more general question of benefits and drawbacks.

On the plus side, our phones are increasingly a major part of our lives – not only for communication, as was normal when I was in my teens, but also for researching, analysing and presenting information.  With a projector in my room and the Socrative app, I can ask questions, have _everyone_ answer them and show instantaneously the results.  Rather than wait for the more outgoing students to answer, this allows even the quieter ones a more risk-free way of participating in the conversation – and they all have to.  There’s no second-guessing when you hear someone else’s answer because everyone’s answering at the same time.

Twitter is another way that I could bring technology into the classroom.  When I attended the technology dinner series that Surrey put on, one of the things they encouraged us to do was to tweet while the presentation was going on.  People wrote questions, ideas, reminders, experiences – and I think it helped many of the participants process the presentation as it was going on.  Instead of just taking notes, they were engaging with the information on an immediate basis.  (I should note that I was not one of the people who was tweeting – I only started exploring Twitter in the past few days, when I decided I wanted to consider including this in my classroom as well.)  Again, with a projector in the room, the Twitter feed could be showing up in real time and form a part of the discussion.

However, I can see a number of pitfalls to this.  If I allow the use of phones and other mobile devices in the classroom, there’s the possibility that they could be abused.  Students could be texting each other, or playing games, or doing something completely unrelated to what is going on.  There’s the question of security: if I actively encourage students to bring in and use their own mobile devices, what happens if they are stolen, or break?  What responsibility does the school have – or do I have as teacher – to protect them?  What do I do for students who don’t have a mobile device, or who don’t have a smartphone?

I guess the thing that concerns me the most is the possibility of abuse.  Yes, I will need to teach them how to use them, and how to use them appropriately; but equally, I and the school will have to work out a policy for mobile devices and how to enforce it. And maybe if the students are part of the discussion, they will be less likely to go against it.

Ultimately, however, I  think it’s probably worth the risk.