In this blogger’s view, 21st century education embraces in educationally effective ways all the digital tools available, and few tools are more widely available than cell phones and now smartphones. This shouldn’t mean open season on students making and taking calls and text messaging in class, but just as we allow students to use pencils in good ways and not bad (i.e. throwing them as darts), we can empower students to use cell phones in positive learning ways.

Discovery Education Network is advocating for this, and providing examples for effective usage– check out a blog posting from an Edweek journalist, and the response postings (even more valuable) here.

As noted in a previous post, I was struck by a student at one high school who told me she used her smartphone to look up definitions and geographical locations in class, but had to hide this because there was a no-cell phone policy in class.  Let’s fix this.