We recently learned the news that France wants to ban mobiles in colleges and universities. French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has confirmed that mobile phones are going to be banned in schools since next 2018-2019 academic year because he considers it a "public health issue."
There are those who applaud this measure, but also those who consider that it is not a pragmatic measure. In Spain, we are not so blunt, at least for now. Each school imposes its own regulations on the use of mobile phones, some with total prohibition and others allow them to be used in specific cases as an educational tool under certain rules. We wonder then, Should cell phones be banned in schools?
The mobile as an educational tool
Society evolves and technology is part of our daily lives, and also of our children. Currently, at age 12, three out of four children have a cell phone, age that coincides with the beginning of high school. This means that most children attend school with a cell phone in their pocket or backpack, unless the school expressly prohibits them (and many still carry it).
However, there are schools that allow its use within the school, and even in the classrooms themselves as an educational tool. They allow them to use them promptly in class to find information and investigate.
AdvertisingIf we complain so much that they are attached to the mobile to play or chat, things that they should not do at school, wouldn't it be a good idea to be taught from school to use the mobile as an educational tool? Seen that way, technology could help modernize and improve teaching.
The Proyecta platform defends the pedagogical use of mobile phones and proposes ideas, advantages, challenges and possibilities for integrate it into classrooms as another tool such as computers, tablets, books or paintings.
Just as we deal with managing the use of technologies at home to make it a safe and positive experience for our children, the school could also do the same in the educational field.
The mobile for emergency situations
It is also true that many children they go to school with their cell phone for security reasons or in case of an emergency. There are children who go home alone to school, or when they leave school they go to another place, and parents need to be located to call at any time when they are out of school.
In those cases, each school sets its own rules of use. Most prohibit them from being used during school hours, but during recess. Others prohibit them throughout the day, and others directly confiscate them during school hours and deliver them to the children at the end of the day.
The mobile as a distraction
The main argument to ban mobile in schools is the distraction that generates them Be looking at the screen instead of paying attention to what happens in class.
Precisely one of the problems in the classroom is to get children to pay attention, so if the use of the mobile phone was also allowed without any control, it would be chaos.
And outside the classroom, one of the cons is that it hurts personal relationships with classmates because they are more aware of digital communication than in person. Not to mention the danger that the use of mobile phones can have in cases of cyberbullying.
What do the studies say?
The issue takes such relevance in education, that there are researchers who have dedicated themselves to analyzing the use of mobile phones in schools, and their relationship with academic results.
According to a study by the London School of Economics conducted with 130 thousand 16-year-old students, schools that prohibit students from taking phones to class have seen a clear improvement in the results of academic tests.
"We found that the impact of banning phones to these students amounts to an additional hour of classes per week, or to increase the school year by five days," according to researchers Richard Murphy and Louis-Philippe Beland. However, they added that their study does not mean that phones and other technologies cannot be used to improve learning.
For its part, the pedagogue Esther Galicia, argues that "prohibiting the use of certain technologies for fear of distraction does not really make much sense. But using them in class should be that: do it as a tool, with a previous training of teachers, some clear rules of use and times for everything. "
Ban or not ban mobile in classrooms?
So what would be best? Seeing the mobile as an enemy of learning contradicts the technological era in which we live, however I also believe that the total freedom of use of the mobile without any control I believe that as in everything, common sense is key when deciding if the use of mobile phones is prohibited or allowed in schools, and if allowed under what regulations.
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