Thursday, July 1, 2010

Speak Up 2009: The biggest Obstacle to Using Technology in Ed...Not Being Able to Use Student's Own Mobile Devices!

Very interesting research has just been published by the Tomorrow Group (Speak Up 2009) about mobile phones and education. Here are a few highlights:

PARENTS SAY YES!

63% of parents say they would buy their child a cell phone if they knew it would be used for educational purposes

ONLY 18% of parents dismiss mobile devices as not having a positive impact on learning.


Potential Benefits of Using Cell Phones in Learning According to PARENTS!

43% Increases student engagement
41% Prepares students for world of work
38% Extends school day learning
37% Provides access to online textbooks
35% Improves teacher-parent-student communications
32% Students can review class materials
31% Personalizes instruction
27% Provides way to help struggling students


Student's HAVE Cell phone ACCESS:

98% of high school students have a cell phone (31% with mobile Internet)
83% of middle school students have a cell phone (25% with mobile Internet)
43% of 3rd through 5th graders have a cell phone (15% with mobile Internet)
28% of K-2nd graders have a cell phone (12% with mobile Internet)


Student's Suggest Ways to Use Cell Phone for Learning:

  • Look up information on Internet
  • Record or take notes
  • Work on projects with classmates
  • Access digital textbooks
  • Take videos of class presentations or experiments
  • Play educational games
  • Communicate with classmates
  • Receive reminders and alerts
  • Organize schoolwork
  • Communicate with teacher
  • Learn about school activities
  • Access social networks
  • Create and share documents/media
  • Upload assignments and work to portals
  • Coordinate calendars
  • Share/edit bookmarks

Teacher's Fears of Integration
76% Students will be distracted
62% Not all students have the mobile devices
33% Concerned that students will cheat using the devices
24% Do not know how to effectively use the devices within instruction
23% Need curriculum to support the use of mobile devices

Yet ONLY 13% of teachers dismiss mobile devices as not having a positive impact on learning.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

If it can be used for educational purposes I see no reason to disallow cell phones usage in education.

Anonymous said...

I have been fighting this in my school as well. They got me phones to use rather than let the students use their own. What kind of sense does that make? This issue is about changing the perception of these devices.

Greg Kulowiec said...

Thank you for posting such great information. I think the teacher fears can be removed with simple solutions. Small groups, quick PD, and solid pedagogy. We don't need a new curriculum to integrate cell phones, we need to explore the benefits (read your blog) and take advantage of the power of cells as education enhancing tools.

eric said...

Hi Liz, these stats are amazing. Just curious, where were they pulled from?

Liz Kolb, Ph.D. said...

Hi Eric
They all came from The Tomorrow Group Reports (2009, 2010)
http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_surveys.html

mindy dickerson said...

My campus and district (Katy ISD, Katy, Texas) have been part of a Smartphone initiative that was piloted last school year at my campus and is currently being rolled out to 10 additional campuses as well. My students' teat scores soared and their creativity and problem solving soared as well. The teachers worked closely together to provide the best cross-curricular learning for the children, and I am so proud of them for the incredible job they did with our kids!
They are more engaged with the devices and are more focused on the product and the research that we have seen with paper/pencil tasks, book research, and even computer lab research. They took ownership of the devices and what they could do.
It was a fabulous experience!

kidzstop4 said...

Wow! Great information. I never thought of a cell phones as an educational tool. Research shows that most high school students have a cell phone. What will educators do for students who do not have a cell phone? From my own experience, I felt my children didn't need their own cell phone until high school. It was a necessity do to after school activities and changing schedules.

redirect removal said...

I don't see how these can have a positive impact on education. Especially when you see people using them while driving -- very dangerous, and I think that technology should be a reward for children, not just "here ya go".

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