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Kirschenman 1
Reese Kirschenman
Instructor: Craig
English 102
15 March, 2017
In the United States, 54% of teens talk to one another through texting and only 33% of
teens actually talk face-to-face with others. This happens throughout the entire day, and for most
of the day, teens are at school. With numbers like these, how do cellphones used in high school
benefit the students? Using the phones in class can either mean the student is researching
something on their phone or they are on social media, texting etc but are these students always
researching something to benefit their learning. While there are many controversies about cell
phones being used during school hours, whether it’s to use them or not to, some people, even
teachers, think they benefit the students because it’s easy access to the web, almost every student
has one, and it can be faster than going to get the laptops or walking the whole class to the
computer lab. While I do agree with these facts, others may think more students that have their
phone out are using it for non-academic reasons. This is the main issue that schools have trouble
about, it’s hard for teachers to limit the use of phone use and I don’t think schools have the right
to take away phones during school because of safety reasons. Believe it or not but as years have
passed cellphones have been benefiting the students, academically, socially, in emergencies, and
have even been benefiting the teachers in ways too.
One way for schools to monitor what their students are viewing or doing would be to
have BYOD- bring your own device. Bring your own device is something that schools that have
decided to have so they can monitor and control what students view on their phones at school.
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This also allows students to get free Wi-Fi as well. Having the students bring their own device is
budget friendly, not only for the schools but for the students’ parents as well. Some schools offer
ipads for every student, but there is a fee to that. This also isn’t the best option because many
schools can’t afford this. On top of not being able to afford ipads for all students, not every
school can afford computers as well. BYOD has been booming in many schools all over the U.S.
According to Shelly Gould Burgess, using the BYOD benefits the students in the best way to
keep the students focused on school work and not being distracted on other things on their
phones like games and social media. Gould Burgees records her lectures as podcasts so her
students will be able to listen to them whenever they want for their homework. She can also have
her students work in groups and pull up the lectures/assignments in class (Chadband). The whole
idea of BYOD is so the students will be able to access their work, teacher’s directions and
comments on their work and even being in contact with their teachers over the weekend or when
there is a substitute teacher. The schools are also able to keep track of what’s going on at the
school, regarding bullying and sexting issues that schools have had problems with in the past. To
keep track of all this, students must sign a form agreeing to terms the school has set, then the
students will get a login. With that login, the school can see when they login and what they view.
Many sites are blocked though, which provides restrictions. Although schools have BYOD and
blocked sites, students may just not use it when they want to go on social media or something
like that and they would just use their data on their phones.
In some cases, BYOD may not be the most effective thing for students because they will
just try to find a way around the rules. Many kids who would be using BYOD would be using
their smartphones to connect to it, very few would bring their laptops to school just to get
internet access because who would want to lug it around? No one. Having your phone is easier,
Kirschenman 3
smaller and more convenient. So when kids use their smartphones to connect to BYOD they
might just unconnect from the BYOD service and use their data so they can have unlimited
access to every website and even get onto their social media accounts (BYOD blocks all social
media sites). When they unconnect, students end up being distracted from their work and the
whole point of BYOD is to stay focused on school work. According to Ashley Wainwright,
“Students may be more easily distracted while working on their own mobile devices and it
possibly opens up the opportunity for cheating.” (Wainwright). From personal experiences, my
school has BYOD and I would use it on occasion. Every time I would get to school, my phone
would connect to the schools Wi-Fi. Having it automatically connect is helpful for the schools,
but not for the students. Being a student and being able to have had experience with BYOD, I
understand why the schools use this as an option. It’s helpful for the learning purposes it
provides, and that’s why we go to school, to learn. When I go onto the computers at my school
most websites, like online gaming ones, are not blocked and some students go on that and play
them during class when we are supposed to be working on an assignment that requires computer
use, which cause distractions during class. One good thing about having some websites blocked
is when you’re working on a research project and you have to research reliable sources, using the
schools computers will benefit you because it will block the unnecessary websites that aren’t
reliable so you will have quality academic sources.
As students figure out ways around the BYOD and start using their own phone data, they
start to get distracted and use their phone constantly during class, going on Instagram, twitter,
snapchat and games, even when the teacher is teaching. I found an article stating what a teacher
had said about her students and cellphones, “The texting, tweeting, and Snapchatting during class
time are ‘an incredible distraction, and makes it much more difficult to teach’”. Furthermore,
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throughout the article, many teachers have come to think that cellphones are the main way
students communicate and the cause and effect of them during class is not positive. A survey
done had stated percentages of students that are on their phone, “Ninety-two percent of teens
report going online daily, with more than half saying they’re online several times a day. Twenty-
four percent say they do so ‘almost constantly.’” (Matchan). With these numbers it does show
how much students truly use their phones during the day, but if schools would control this the
numbers might go down or stay the same, but the students would be using them for educational
purposes.
I know not every school can control what their students do, just like every student they
will try to avoid the rules, but more teachers should embrace the technology like a teacher at
