This year, a new technology policy has been put in place that says phones and laptops can be used in class at the teacher’s discretionThis new phone policy is not new, at all. In reality, this new policy was put in place by FCPS and allows students to use technology such as smart phones and laptops for educational use in classes.
The point of this new policy is to better a student’s learning environment by using technology to enhance the learning experience in each of their classes to help with their understanding of class content.
Although this new policy is supposed to be a change in all of our cases, most teachers don’t even accept it. At least five out of my eight teachers still say that if any phone is in sight or goes off in class, it will be confiscated for our parents to come get. Sounds a lot like last year’s rules to me, don’t you agree?
Even though this rule has forced some teachers into giving students permission to use technology in class, many teachers need to step into the 21st century because cellphones are an official part of students’ everyday lives.
This new policy isn’t much different than the rules that were set in place last year and years before. Honestly, with laptops already available in most classes, most of us don’t even have a reason to take our phones out. On top of that, we can’t even check our phones in the hallways without getting slack from teachers that are standing over our shoulders. But, if the policy were to be successful, it would be a major advancement in our school lives.
What many of these overbearing staff members don’t understand is that the use of these cell phones in class is actually detrimental to some student’s understanding of the topics they are learning in that subject.
For me at least, I need alternative ways to understand the topics being taught at times. When you have to opportunity to take out your phone or computer, this widens the amount of sources available for learning. Teachers should love to see students utilizing their resources to learn. It’s pretty hard to believe that any teacher would crush our curiosity of wanting to learn more. But it’s obvious why many teachers are not fans of this new policy.
Teachers believe that us students will spend our time on Facebook and Twitter while texting in between. Why don’t I see that as a bad thing? Twitter and Facebook make teachers cringe but there are plenty of educational things that can be done with both resources. Not only can a student set a status reminding their friends to study for a test, but they can tweet helpful URLs to remind themselves and others of good resources to use for classwork. Also, amy students use their phones to update their calendars, take pictures of the homework and look up definitions for words they don’t know.
But here’s my biggest issue: registration. Considering that the school has no liability if our phones or laptops get stolen, there should be no reason for students to be obligated to register their pieces of technology.
Half the student population knows how to hack the security system anyways; so many of us don’t even need to be entered into the school’s wifi system to get a connection. Basically, this added step in order to use your phone not only ruins expensive Otterboxes with an ugly barcode, but also creates unnecessary hassle for both administrators and students alike.
Although FCPs has put BYOD or Bring Your Own Device in action, it is a waste of time until all teachers get on board with these new policies. If teachers start allowing us to use our phones and laptops in class full force, all students will “like” this new technology policy.
