Mr. Mills Blog

Cell phones are often seen as bad or students in schools. At Murray, we have a policy that they are not allowed to be in classes. I agree with that policy. They are too much of distraction, and students are too often using them just to communicate. Imagine, though, that they could be used for something else. Considering all the mobile web gadgets that are available now, could cell phones be used for educational purposes? I saw an interesting article on this today that speak to this phenomenon. Will Richardson mentioned this today because New York is thinking about instituting a policy where students have to leave their cell phones in a locker before they enter school. He states:

It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that the convergence of all of this will fit in our pockets. It has to. The culture is demanding mobile computing, and it’s being driven by our kids. And I think we need to start looking at ways to leverage that ability.

Social networking sites are becoming more and more commercialized. MySpace is already becoming inundated with advertisers, so kids are looking for other places to communicate. I bet YouTube might see the same thing happen to them this year. A mobile web cell phone might be the one way kids communicate with each other. It might be interesting to find out how that could be used in schools.