Chris Harte has done a very detailed, comprehensive and excellent report on TMNE10 on his blog with links about the meet here so I'm going to write about something else.
On the day I gave my presentation extolling the virtues, and giving examples, of using mobile phones in my classroom, including an interactive text poll, a teaching union, the NASUWT, called for a crackdown on mobile phones in schools after it claimed that mobile technology was, in part, responsible for an incident in which a teacher was charged with the attempted murder of a student. (You can read the whole story here)
This type of nonsense makes my blood boil. I can understand that with some classes allowing students to have a mobile phone in class is not a good idea. By the same token, for some of the more challenging and unruly students I have met over the years, giving them a ruler or even a pencil is not a good idea.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that banning something because of a few isolated incidents has a negative, knock-on effect on the learning and enjoyment of the more cooperative and trustworthy students. Why should everyone suffer for the poor behaviour of a minority?
1 comment:
I totally agree with you but the problem is that usually the majority is punished because of a minority! I believe the same kind of issues are happening when a school decides to block Youtube, Facebook or Twitter! There is also an excellent presentation made by David Trust about using Personally Owned Devices which I linked to one of my posts
http://aliceayel.posterous.com/personally-owned-devices-or-whether-or-not-us
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