And my colleagues who work in university education faculties and who are teaching the next generation of teachers agree with me. So.
Of course they are, because their teachers are failing to make use of those devices, failing to fulfill their potential as the most powerful learning technologies available, and failing to teach them how to use that technology appropriately. Obviously, if you teach 20th century material using 19th century teaching methods, based on 18th century models of learning, your students will find 21st century learning technology to be more compelling. So maybe they stop doing that, and take advantage of that technology by creating a curriculum that incorporates it and demonstrates as a learning tool, rather than banning it.
And they were correct to do so. Learning long division by hand is a waste of time. Learning how to manually solve the quadratic formula is a waste of time. In the time it takes to calculate by hand the two roots of a quadratic, you can download an app that solves that and plots the graph for you, so you can do something actually useful with that result and visualize what it means in a manner that a memorized mathematical process never can. I use math every day, but I don’t do any of it by hand: I use SPSS and Excel and a calculator. Memorizing algorithms doesn’t help you understand anything, and using appropriate tools to solve problems doesn’t prevent the proper teaching of problem solving or critical thinking skills. Indeed, it can promote those things, because if you teach the proper use of ubiquitous powerful tools, you can spend less time uselessly drilling rote memorization, and more time actually interpreting and analyzing results and solutions, and more time learning how to apply core principles – and learning tech – to the solution of new problems. Hand cranking the math, and mindlessly memorizing rote algorithms to solve irrelevant problems, is neither necessary nor sufficient to understanding or using the math.
Sure. Let’s forbid them until they are 18 from ever seeing or using the tools they will be expected to use for their entire adult lives. Hide the calculators and computers and all these other new-fangled learning technologies. (Like books! Why in my day we had to memorize Beowulf!) Or, hey, maybe instead we could teach them how to use those tools properly, just like all the other things we expect adults to be able to do.
But it’s really not. Because a personal phone is a computer than can be used for lessons and research. And for data acquisition. And for calculation. And for writing. And for picture and audio and video recording. And for augmented reality. And for interactive personal responses mid-lesson. And for guided-inquiry active learning activities. And for collaborative knowledge exploration, creation, and sharing. And for communication and engagement with subject experts. And for a hundred other transformative learning activities that mean less time wasted in the pursuit of learning objectives comprising useless memorization, offering more time to develop genuine analytical and creative skills while using the actual knowledge and learning tools that they will use later in life.
Complaints about phones being distractions for students that prevent learning only occur in classrooms where teachers are not using phones as powerful tools to promote learning. Every student already has instant access to more knowledge than any human being before has ever known. Not exploiting that access to transform education is idiotic.
