Utah’s Board of Education today will take up a proposal to require the state’s school districts to put guidelines in place governing the use of cell phones and other electronic devices in classrooms. Past board discussions have run the gamut from banning cell phones from campus to using them for educational purposes, the Deseret News notes.
Utah’s education officials and lawmakers point to recent incidents of students using camera phones to take nude photos of themselves and others. Texting is being used for harassment or bullying. But many adults admit there is an opportunity to harness this technology that teens are so obsessed with and potentially use it to promote education.
The state’s legislators rejected a measure earlier this year to require all school districts to adopt an electronic-device policy. The bill didn’t pass, the paper notes, but state education officials took notice.
Meanwhile over at The Tempered Radical, teacher Bill Ferriter worries that “those who are in the position to make decisions about how dollars are spent or how instruction should change struggle to understand the range of ways that digital tools can be used to facilitate the work of groups or the learning of individuals.”
0 Responses to “Digital Divide”