Wednesday, August 22, 2007

How young is too young for cell phones?

While many teachers that I work with claim cell phones should only be considered for learning at the secondary level (if at all) because most younger students do not have their own cell phone, a new article disputes this notion. The article, Should a 10-Year -Old Have a Cell phone?, describes many parents who are purchasing cell phones for children as young as 8 in order to keep tabs on their kids, stay in touch, and to keep them safe in case of emergencies. The article references a study (Jupiter) that states by the end of this year (2007) 1/2 of 12-13 year olds will have a cell phone and 1/3 of 10-11 year olds will have their own cell phone! While many of these cell phones are limited and restricted (such as only being able to call a few numbers and no text messaging), I have a feeling that the age of children with cell phones will only decrease over time (as I mentioned in an earlier post, PBS has developed programs for preschoolers to use on cell phones). Thus I think it is important to consider potential learning uses of cell phones with students of all ages. The younger we start to educate students on appropriate cell phone use and misuse, the better chance we have to teach them how to use their cell phones as life-long learning tools, rather than just a social toy!

No comments:

Disclaimers and Other Information about this blog. The information on the blog may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up to date. The opinions expressed on the blog are the opinions of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of anyone or any institution associated with the author. Links to external sources in the blog posts are provided solely as a courtesy to our blog visitors. All of the links on the sidebar under "recommended links" are links that the author believes to possibly have benefit in K-12 teaching and learning. All other sidebar links are related to cell phones and/or education but not necessary recommended as a K-12 learning resource by the author, some may be sponsor links and/or paid for image/banner ads. The author does not do paid reviews for her blog posts about web resources.Please contact Liz at elizkeren@yahoo.com for any inquires regarding this blog.
Creative Commons License Cell Phones in Learning by Liz Kolb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at cellphoneseinlearning.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://cellphonesinlearning.com.