I had to take away a cell phone in class today.

I realize my titles are getting less creative. I'm in a title-writing funk. I won't let it stop me from writing, though.


My kids were buzzing as they came into the classroom today.

"Were we supposed to bring our cell phones today?"

"Do we get to use our iPods today?"

I told them on Monday about the go-ahead teachers had received from our principal to begin allowing non-laptop wifi devices on the school's networks. We were also encouraged -- at least I took it that way -- to use cell phones in class. The wording in our handbook hasn't changed. It reads something like, "Cell phones are to be used only for educational purposes in school." I'm deciding to take that as a challenge.

"What else do we do here?" I asked. "We learn. That's the educational purpose for being in this classroom. So from now on, when you're in this room, your phones are with you."

I thought all weekend about rules or norms or whatever you want to call them regarding our new digital learning devices. I'm trying to push DLD in class as the acronym for all this stuff. It quickly turned into a running joke with the kids, because of course if it was my idea it will never catch on. Back to the rules. I decided I didn't want to make the rule-making a bigger show than it needed to be, so I came up with two rules that I would give.

1. DLDs are to be used for learning.
2. DLDs are to be used out in the open and not hidden.

I told the kids, "Look. If you're following rule number one, you have nothing to hide." I want to quickly break them of the habit -- unlearn, perhaps -- of texting under the chair, or using their phone without looking to pretend like they're still paying attention. That's a habit that old people have given them. That's what we get for treating cell phones like something more than communication devices.

Today, we were doing an activity where kids voted on a PollEverywhere poll to choose between two answers. We were learning about apostrophes -- possessives, plural possessives, and contractions. I leveled with them and explained that what we were doing with phones was just replacing raising hands. I explained it would have been easier if I had just said, "Raise your hand if you think this one is correct. Raise your hand if you think this one is correct. But this is more......"

"Fun!" yelled one student.

It's true. It is more fun. And the kids were really into it. I mean big time. Not all the students had their own phones, so the ones who did started sharing. Naturally. They wanted the other kids to be able to participate.

I know I wasn't doing anything transformative with the technology today, but they had to learn how to use it. My goal is to get good at creating Likert scale questions to use with PollEverywhere and their phones. Today we were just learning to use the technology.

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So, I had to take away a cell phone in class today. It hurt me to have to do it, but I'll do it again. It's part of a battle I'm fighting.

What happened? Easy. A student broke rule number two.

Was he texting? Nope.

Was he doing anything nefarious? Nope.

In fact, he was right in line with rule number one. Which is why I knew I had to follow through on the consequence for breaking rule number two. I have to break them of that habit.

He had borrowed the phone of a student in his group. He had never seen her phone before and he wanted to play with it, wanted to learn about it. And instead of doing that -- learning -- above the desk, out in the open, he hid it.

We don't hide our learning in our room.

UPDATE:
I realized a huge mistake I was making! I put so much effort into not treating the DLDs any differently from other tools that I was treating them differently!


As part of the agenda I write on my whiteboard each day, I write a "you will need" list. The list usually consists of writing utensil, journal, free reading book, 2 sheets of paper, etc. The tools they will need.


So, first, I'm changing the name of that list from "you will need" to "Today's Tools" and "DLD" will now be one of the tools that will end up on the list if it will be used and left off if not. I'll expect kids to bring their DLDs to class and keep them in their binders if they're not on the list -- just like all the other tools they bring to class. And like any other tools (say an extra sheet of paper I didn't expect us to need) if they end up needing to use them, they can just grab them out of their binders quickly.

Here's where I got ahead of myself: these are still 6th graders. For 90% of the ones who have cell phones, they've had them for less than a year. Add to that the feeling they bring to my room that they're "getting away with something" by having their phones out. Sure, some day I'd like them to be mature enough to just have them out all the time, but at this point that just does not make sense. If they're just another tool -- like a pencil -- why do they have a special place on their desk?


I am out of control excited about this. I really think this tiny change will make a huge difference. It falls right in line with the other expectations and structures that are in place. No special structures for DLDs.