You speak to the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude in our profession. You’re bang-on with that – from any teacher in-servicing you’ve done as well, I’m sure it doesn’t take you long to realize that teachers don’t make good students typically.

With regard to the use of emerging technologies however, I wonder if it isn’t part of a larger problem where teachers actually don’t know how to use these tools effictively (or appropriately, especially when it comes to etiquette). I read a great article by Will Richardson a couple days ago that speaks (strongly) to this which I encourage you to read in your hours of free time (LOL)! The following quote sums up the blog post:

“How in God’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first?”
http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/urgent-21st-century-skills-for-educators-and-others-first/

But you raise a very good point, the bottom line is at the end of the day we want to do what’s right for our students. To my mind that’s to teach them responsibility. We need to teach them the “right/safe” ways to use any technology (from a pencil to a cell phone), and that includes a when and where education. However to simply ban them is in my opinion (and from what I can tell yours as well Danny) would be wrong. My big beef is the whole do as I say but not as I do attitude that I’ve seen some in our profession have. If you say always be on time for class, and make sure you power down – well then you better be on time for all your PD, and make sure you shut off your electronics too.

At the end of the day all that matters is that our students grew both academically and personally. Thats all I ever want to see.

But enough procrastinating – my report cards were due 4 days ago, and I expect my assignments done on time……..
I’m so bad…

I’m a bit on the fence with this one. On the one hand, I’m a big proponent of the ‘digital citizenship’ movement and believe that students and teachers need to learn responsible use of technology, including what they should and shouldn’t post online, copyright, responsible downloading, cyberbullying, and other aspects of web awareness. Too often we see things simply ‘blocked’ (and I’m not necessarily against that) but without the instruction to go along with it. So on the one hand, teaching students to use mobile internet devices such as cell phones, iTouch, etc. responsibly is the way to go rather than just a blanket ban. The Acceptable Use policies for technologies should not be a piece of paper one signs and files away – it should be a learning process.

On the other hand, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for school jurisdictions who do put restrictions on cell phone/mobile device usage. Camera phones can instantly publish content to blogs, YouTube, etc. which was collected at schools secretly and is either very inappropriate or taken out of context. The music and video storage/playback capabilities of cell phones and portable multimedia players increase the risk of someone showing or listening to something inappropriate, and we know by the risk-taking and group affiliation nature of youth that someone will inevitably attempt this. All it takes is one student to have something seen by someone who tells the wrong parent, and a large scandal with possible legal ramifications can take place. While the odds of such things happening may not be great, the consequences of even a single event could be very bad for a teacher, school and/or district. In this litigious world we do live in, school boards (who in most cases will, by the large-scale nature of their organizations) will be ruled against. It’s as frustrating as heck to deal with the 4-page permission slips which resemble legal documents and to struggle with what one ‘can’ and ‘can’t’ do in a school, but it is part of our reality, like it or not.

And let’s not forget the educational issues associated. While I’m a big fan of Dr. Chris Dede and his ‘Neomillennial Learning’ Style (http://connect.educause.edu/blog/jcummings/chrisdedeonemergingtechno/16662?time=1205269403) which suggests that students today can indeed multitask effectively, this theory is based on observations and not proven research. I’ve recently come across research (here’s an example – http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=37130&CFID=640863&CFTOKEN=14348438) which shows that learning is in fact hindered by students multitasking.

So the devil’s advocate within me could ask, whose needs are we really serving by allowing students to text message and listen to music in class? Is a “quiet” class of students listening to their devices and not bothering anyone the goal?

In the end, I really don’t know where I fall in this debate. Perhaps there’s a time and a place for everything – in the right context, perhaps common sense versus a strict policy is more advantageous. On the other hand, the risks are real and plentiful, and while allowing the devices into our students hands may win us the popularity contest of the day, depending on that time and place – we may not be serving students.

In addition – if we know that to be effective, PD must be job-embedded, authentic and engaging, then why do we even have teacher convention? Thisis another one of those institutions that no longer make any sense, but we’ll keep doing it because that’s the way we’ve always done it.