Wireless Learning

I was going to type this post on my phone to make a point, but it was taking too long and I missed my physical keyboard. 

Anyway, phones, am I right? I doubt anything in history has been both so useful and so hindering to a generation of people. You carry a music-playing, direction-giving, messaging/calling capable computer in your pocket, a digital Swiss army knife. And yet, people still go out to dinner and stare at a screen. You can connect to people across the world while disconnecting from people across the table. While this negative outlook on technology is popular (looking at you Boomers), I believe that technology does a whole lot more good for society than bad, even cell phones. As a teacher, I hope to be able to effectively integrate technology into my classroom, which means I must teach digital literacy.

Students are growing up in an age where digital literacy is a needed skill, so what better way to do so than with technology they are comfortable with? Ed Turner, author of The Ethics of Digital Literacy, tells a story about a teacher, Lauren, who wants to allow the use of the students’ phones in her New York classroom to teach lessons. She made collaborative lesson plans that incorporated the phones in meaningful ways. Once students can get past the distractions that come with cell phones, there is much learning to be had. In the high school that I went to, there was a strict “no phones” policy, and I understand that point of view. They are distracting, even to higher level students. However, perhaps part of teaching digital literacy is teaching students when to use technology, along with why and how (i.e. self-control when they feel the buzz in their pocket). As teachers, we should take steps, like Lauren did, to integrate technology that students are already familiar with.