Don't send kids to school without their external brains

I traded in my first iPhone, a 4, on Monday for a 5s. With a new contract and a generous Best Buy trade-in, I was out about 80 bucks. I expected to spend most of Monday evening installing, tweaking, restoring, organizing apps and such but by simply "restoring" from the settings of my old phone, I was up and running in about 30 minutes. Amazing.

I've long argued that asking kids to leave their phones at home is not only unwise, but cruel. All of us, adults and kids, have been assimilated with our smartphones providing external Borgish brains, admit it or not.

Phone numbers, calendars, address books, to-do-lists, flight schedules and such, I have long relegated to device memory. I've started to use the camera on the phone to help me remember my hotel room number, parking space, my grocery list, - anything this aging brain finds itself forgetting. (See below.)  

 

So why should students not also be able to rely on these memory-assisting devices - for assignments, to-do lists, notes, etc. Snap a photo of a teacher's Powerpoint or homework assignment from the board. 

More importantly, these devices provide instant access to information related to questions that come up during discussions or studies. Two incidents drove this home for me:

On a road trip a couple summers ago with the grandsons, we drove through the town of Lodi, WI - Home of Susie the Duck.

The LWW and I turned to each other and asked, "Who is Susie the Duck?", feeling culturally illiterate. But by the time we were out of town, grandson Paul had used the 3G connectivity on an iPad to find out who Susie was and why she is still honored by a fesitval in her name. Boom. I'm sure had we waited to get to a desktop computer or library, we'd have forgotten the question.

More recently, a fellow Kiwanian (even older than I am), nudged me during our noon lunch meeting and asked, "Hey, would you use your phone to look up how the 'beef commercial' dish got its name." So even those who don't have external brains themselves know they exist and how they can be used.

We have to stop banning student-owned smart devices in our schools; stop sending kids to school without all the resources they can leverage in their learning.  

Skin in the game on 1:1 projects

Minnesota’s constitutional guarantee of a free public school education for all eligible students means schools are prohibited from charging fees for necessary goods and services. State statutes define necessary goods and services to include instructional materials and supplies, required library books, required school activities, lockers, graduation caps and gowns, and bus fees to students who live more than two miles from school.   Larson, Lisa. Minnesota's Public School Fee Law, Minnesota House of Representatives, December 2010.

My district wants to begin allowing students to take school-owned devices (iPads) home. So we need to answer the question whether we ask families to insure these devices. Insurance runs about $40 a year and districts here in MN are all over the board about whether families are required to buy insurance or not.

I can see both sides of this argument. As the quote above states, public schools in Minnesota may not charge for "necessary goods and services." If the device and the resources and activities to which it provides access are a vital part of the educational process, how can a school charge for insurance without violating the law?

One way districts skirt this rule is to require insurance only by students who take the devices home with them. When used only in school, there are no fees. Hmmmmm. Studies I've read indicate that the only time 1:1 programs impact student achievement is when kids have the devices 24/7. And are we further exacerbating the digital divide when some kids (whose families can afford insurance) take them home and some do not? 

Some schools set up sliding scales based on family income, subsidizing insurance cost for families who qualify for the FRP lunch program. (Much like athletic fees.) I've heard of other districts allowing students to "work off" the insurance cost by providing a certain number of service hours for the school. Are we looking at singling out and stigmatizing kids doing this?

Yet, it's human nature that we take better care of things when we have a monetary stake in them, so I do like the idea of kids and their families having a little "skin in the game" when it comes to the treatment of school-owned technology.

But I don't really see how we can charge kids for the right to take these devices home if they are truly a "necessary good."

And if they are not truly necessary, why go to the cost of a 1:1 project in the first place?

I love to hear the thoughts of readers on this topic. I am truly ambivalent! 

When arrogance overrides education

A commenter on my recent post Technology and Trust (that argues for keeping student devices and Internet access as unrestricted as possible) wrote: 

I'm laughing as I read this post about not trusting students on the web because in my district the administration is still blocking the TEACHERS with strict internet filters!

If recent news articles are any indication, schools may be wiser to try to control adult use of technology than student use. In his link to the article, Dr. Doug Green calls the actions of this Pennsylvania superintendent and athletic director "digital stupidity." The sup and and his AD traded racist text messages use school-owned phones, and of course, were discovered. "Stupid*" works in this instance on a number of levels:

• Anyone who is racist is stupid. Period.
• Anyone who puts racist comments in writing or other recordable media is stupid.
• Anyone who uses school equipment to transmit racist comments is stupid.
• Anyone who thinks that their racist comments will not at some point be discovered is stupid. (As my dad use to say, it's not a matter of "if" but "when" you will get caught.)

There are any number of other terms one could substitute for racist above - sexist, pornographic, illegal, etc.. 

I have never been one to come down hard on the "personal" use of school-owned devices or bandwidth by students. You can read my reasons for this in "Did You Hear the One About?"

Nor do I worry much about personal use of devices by staff. (Do we really get bent out of shape if a teacher uses a school telephone to schedule a doctor's appointment or uses the bulletin board in the teachers' lunchroom to advertise a car for sale?) I can count on one hand, the number of times we have needed to address staff misuse of technology in our district over the past 20 years. We don't go looking for problems, but given probable cause, we sure don't ignore them either. Trust generally works.

Why am I still surprised when people who ought to know better still do really stupid things? I would assume both the sup and AD director in the story above are educated, have experience in education, and understand what racism is.

I suspect that arrogance overrides education, experience and understanding. And I don't think a training program exists that prevents hubris.

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*stupid (adjective): given to unintelligent decisions or acts m-w.com

Stupid is as stupid does. Forrest Gump

Stupid is not my favorite word. It sounds mean and harsh and ugly. But after reading that according to Newsweek that 25% of employees visit porn sites from work, and that the adult video industry claims hits on porn sites are highest during the work day, it was truly the only term that seems to fit this sort of human behavior. I don't have any overwhelming objections to pornography per se. But perusing it at work? That's stupid.

I use stupid under fairly constrained conditions. To me, a stupid act has a degree of willfulness about it and is serious. Making an error once is ignorance; making the same mistake multiple times is stupidity. Unfortunately, I see stupid acts and beliefs related to technology in schools all the time. ...

4. Thinking online communication is ever private. Eventually everyone sends an embarrassing personal message to a listserv. I've heard of some tech directors who get their jollies reading salacious inter-staff e-mails. Your school e-mails can be requested and must be produced if germane to any federal lawsuits. Even e-mails deleted from your computer still sit on servers somewhere - often for a very loooong time. Think you wiped out your browsing history? Don't bet that that is the only set of tracks you've left that show where you've been surfing. Your Facebook page will be looked at by the school board chair and your superintendent and principal know who the author of that "anonymous" blog is. Not assuming everyone can see what you send and do online is stupid.

From Seven Stupid Mistakes Teachers Make With Technology