Answer: Yes. All day, every day (kind of).
It has been an ongoing debate at schools across the globe since the dawn of portable technology. When I was in high school it was a matter of whether or not students should be allowed to have their Walkmans in school. Obviously, we've come a long way in a fairly short period of time and those periods of time will continue to become increasingly shorter as the speed of technology innovation grows exponentially every year.
With that in mind, we must inevitably embrace our inability to understand, adapt to, and react to, technology at a pace greater than its development. Thus, we must find a way to function and thrive in a perpetual position of uncertainty and unpreparedness. While older generations have a lifetime of context within which to process that idea, our current students have been raised amid this (somewhat) controlled chaos. Therefore, for them it is simply reality.
They do not particularly care if they are sharing ideas, photos, or videos via traditional e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, or the next format that will sweep the social media landscape by storm before it meets a quick and unceremonious demise. Today's teens know nothing other than a life of regular OS updates and gadgetry design based on planned obsolescence.
Current students simply care that they are communicating with one another, much like previous generations did by passing notes in class. Therefore it is irrelevant to them whether or not we want them to use their devices. Like teens through the ages, they will find a way to explore the world in which they exist, so they can create meaning and context that is relevant to their personal time and place. Inevitably, their devices are a portal to much of that meaning and context, whether we like it or not.
Consequently, we must accept (begrudgingly or otherwise) that their reality is partially our reality. Current students will soon be navigating a world without pencils, pens, or paper books. Some may never encounter the Dewey decimal system or a Scantron machine. What they will encounter; however, is a world where nearly every piece of information is at their fingertips alongside every imaginable distraction. It is therefore the obligation of today's educators to allow students to be distracted by their devices, simply so we can begin learning how to coach them to tune out those same distractions.
One of the greatest challenges technology has created, for adults and children alike, is the necessity to manage our time along with the distractions that have the potential to consume that time. If we can impart that skill to our students in a safe environment where we control the consequences, we can save many students from making those same mistakes when it could seriously impact their higher education or their livelihood.
My next blog post will go into detail about my experiences, challenges, frustrations and successes in implementing the above concept into high school classrooms.
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