Week 12

I found the topic of cellphones and QR codes in education very interesting. However, I'm still not completely convinced of the feasibility (or desirability) of incorporating mobile technology in the classroom. The staff and parents at the BYOD school presented in the introductory video kept referring to the heightened "engagement" they saw in the students. One parent said that her children found learning fun. 

While I agree that it's nice to see children eager to learn, I sometimes can't help feeling that we're going to such great lengths to make everything so palatable, enticing, intriguing, etc., that we're raising a generation of kids that expects to be catered to and can't conceive of doing anything that's not fun. Maybe it's a question of balance. Perhaps it's valid to incorporate the tools that students are used to using in their daily lives in their educational experience as long as they're expected to pick up a book (or kindle) and read an extensive, challenging text every once in a while as well. I suppose it's not really incorporating technology that bothers me, but rather the insistence that everything be fun.

As for uses in education, the treasure hunt seemed like a good idea. I suppose that the aspect of competition would keep them focused so that they wouldn't be checking their whatsapp every other minute. I know that in my own classroom I would love to be able to do Kahoot! quizzes, but there is absolutely no way the Rosh Yeshiva in my school would condone bringing cell phones into the classroom, even for educational purposes. I understand his perspective, since it's such a battle to keep them, and other distractions, out of the class. While I would be happy to adopt the "if you can't beat them, join them" approach, I see that even at the college level, telephones and other mobile devices can be a real distraction. In classes where teachers do not demand that students put away their phones or close their computers a large portion of the students are busy doing things (often important) unrelated to the class. I'm sure that this would be an even bigger problem in a high school population.