- 91 percent of teenagers, ages 13 to 17, access the internet on cell phones, tablets and other mobile devices at least occasionally. [Source]
- 51 percent of high school students and 28 percent of middle school students carry a smartphone with them to school every day [Source]
- On average, children are 12.1 years old when they receive their first mobile device. [Source]
As an educator, I personally have accepted that mobile devices are not going anywhere and that we need to accept their presence and usefulness in our schools and classrooms. While some educators debate if students should have phones/devices in our buildings, few can argue that schools and families must begin to teach students a few key skills to better support our students' education.
1. Students must be able to use their school's website or app to look up their own grades, attendance, discipline and other available educational records. One cannot goal-set and improve if they do not have the data to know how they are doing and where to focus. Our students are no different than professionals like athletes, engineers and businessmen who constantly take snapshots of their work in time and then focus their improvement in areas they have difficulty and/or deficiencies. Students must download/locate the app or site that allows for access to this data and then must bookmark and save log-ins and passwords for frequent checking and goal setting. Once these goals are created we must coach students to set up reminders to monitor their growth within their program/app or an online calendar. There are many websites that allow students to send their 'future' selves reminders of these goals to keep on track like futureme.org and textitlater.com, which can also be done from their mobile device.
2. Students must be proficient with an online- or app- based calendar. The days of students carrying a paper calendar with their school logo emblazoned upon it are waning. Both the responsibility of carrying a planner around and the daily task of remembering to check it regularly can now be replaced with their mobile device which they always have and frequently look at (some argue too much). Setting up a calendar with reminders for projects, upcoming events, goals, and other school appropriate dates is as easy as using Google Calendar, ICloud Calendar, Cal, or any of the pre-installed calendar apps on your device. Many current study apps and learning management systems that schools and teachers use sync with these calendars with minimal student effort, thus only enhancing student organization and time management.
3. Student must know how to capture and share learning with their mobile device while enhancing their digital footprint. Students can easily use Snapchat, Twitter, InstaGram and use just about every social media app but do they know how to improve their digital footprint through the capture and sharing of educational highlights? Adults in their lives must model and moderate social media use while teaching students how to capture their best moments. Instead of camera's for selfies, they can be used to capture images of their best work, videos of learning highlights or reviews, and then shared across multiple websites and social media apps. When Googled, a student's goal should be a steady stream of impressive school products and collaborations within the search results.
4. Students must be able to collaborate across the web/cloud with multiple parties to study or create a product/project. Face-to-face communication will never lose importance in the educational process. With that in mind, we cannot ignore that students need to learn the nuanced skills of collaborating with peers and professionals through online means. Whether the correspondence is, via a common app or software like Google Apps or through virtual conversations by chat programs like Google Hangouts or Skype, students' confidence is built when they are able to create new items virtually. Students can also enhance their curriculum understanding via their mobile device by reaching out to authors or professionals in the field and not only get their questions answered, but also can present their learning by respected individuals beyond their teachers. Also, by collaborating via social media apps, students can create study groups that can meet and quiz each other in an asynchronous way, fitting review time between their very busy schedule.
While this list is not all-encompassing it would be a great start to help students to use their cell phones, iPods, tablet computers and laptops for productive work. Technology used in a positive format will allow our children to grow up feeling that they can goal set, track and improve their learning, collaborate beyond their immediate world and make a meaningful difference in their (and our) world.