Instead of covertly using smart phones to text, tweet and make posts to social media, students in Katy Challis’ science class use their cell phones to do research and perform “app labs.”
After a short explanation of an assignment that uses water bottle rockets to learn about pressure, Challis turns her students loose to work in groups and research rocket design on their cell phones, tablet computers or other electronic devices.
Instantly Challis’ classroom at Clarke Johnsen Junior High School becomes a research library as students pair up and begin searching the Internet.
“I love being able to use technology in the classroom,” she said. “This is the way this generation gets information.”
A new district policy that allows students to use their personal electronic devices for academic needs in the classroom has Tooele County School District officials hoping more teachers will take advantage of the available technology.
“We need to make changes in how we teach,” said Superintendent Scott Rogers. “And that means using technology to help students learn in the way they learn things today.”
The Tooele County School Board passed a new policy on personal technology and communication devices at their Oct. 14 meeting. The new policy supersedes a former policy on student cell phone use.
The use of cell phones, iPads, PDAs, and laptops in classrooms was forbidden by the old policy. It stated that “cell phones have limited or no educational value.”
A violation of the policy allowed an electronic device used in a classroom to be confiscated by the teacher.
“It just didn’t sound right to tell students to ‘power down’ in the classroom,” said Hal Strain, TCSD secondary education director.
The new policy views student-owned and provided electronic devices as a resource for learning, according to Strain.
Students can now use their devices in the classroom at the discretion of their teacher for academic purposes, according to the new policy.
“We are not letting them use them during class for texting,” Rogers said. “But student-owned devices are a great resource that is out there and we want teachers to use them in the classroom for students to do research and work on other projects. We can teach students how to use their own devices to learn and encourage them to use them appropriately for good things.”
Rogers said he was inspired by a visit to Washington High School in St. George.
“I saw students using their own devices and the technology got them very engaged in their learning,” he said.
The district will have some obstacles to overcome as they go electronic, according to Rogers.
“We will need to upgrade our WiFi capacity in our schools,” he said. “We don’t have the ability for every phone in a school to be connected to the Internet right now.”
The new policy encourages students to use the district’s wireless connection, which is filtered.
Schools also need to find a way to work with students that don’t have electronic devices.
“The teacher can let students work in groups or maybe we’ll have a few devices available in the classroom,” Rogers said. “We’re going to encounter a few problems as we do this, but we’ll figure it out.”
The new policy also contains language that forbids sending threatening, harassing, intimidating, offensive, vulgar, profane, obscene text or photos, cyber bullying or coercive communications.
These actions may result in disciplinary action or the filing of criminal and civil charges, according to the policy.
To help teachers with ideas of how to use student personal technology to increase learning in the classroom, Rogers has dubbed the district’s fall inservice training “Techtoberfest.”
Held on Oct. 31 for all teachers and administrators, Techtoberfest will feature applications of technology for students in the classroom.
“We want to jump right into this,” he said. “But we realize that we will need to train and support teachers as we change the way they teach.”