Cell phones, and an acknowledgement of my absence

Notice how it blocks out my mouth.  Notice the wedding ring, strategically placed on my left finger.  Notice how it looks like I took this picture from prison.

So it has been a year and a half, eh?  Oops.  Big ideas for blogging crash on the shoals of reality all the time, I'm guessing.

That big idea is back, though, and only 75% because I have to do blog posts for a grad class on technology integration in the classroom.

Anyway, today's topic is cell phones: usage and abusage by students in the classroom.

I missed the boat on cell phones in high school.  Kids had them, of course, but they were just phones, then.  Some of them had "Snake" on them, which was the happening-est app to be had in 2002, all simple pixels and square food pellets for the snake to eat.

He never refused the food.  How wonderful of him, for the sake of the game.

Anyway, phones now (and for the past few years) aren't phones; they're magical, palm-sized tools that, as Louis C. K. said, let you "look at your own head" from space.  They are seemingly all-powerful, slowly approaching the power of laptops and tablets (technologically savvy folks, please prove me wrong).

And, my stars, they all come equipped with a mobile version of ICQ!  Kids call it "text messaging" these days; oh, those crazy colloquialisms.

I'm pretty sure the "make phone calls" function of the phone is where people spend about 4% of their time.

How have I made use of these wonderful deus machinas?  As Kanye said, "What you gonna do with all that power?"

Short answer: nothing.  I don't allow them in my classroom.

Before you call me a caveman, let me give my reasons.

First, the obvious answer: not all of the students have one.  Asking all the students to bring their phones (something I have done) results in three or four students in each class either forgetting their phone, having to admit they don't have a phone, or bringing in a (GASP!) vastly outdated phone and being socially ostracized.  If I can help it, I don't force kids into that position.

Second, the other obvious answer:  have you ever observed 7th graders for any extended period of time?  They think fast and they act faster.  Also, those two actions (with notable exceptions) rarely travel in the same direction.  They're not even driving the same type of vehicle.  7th graders are like the Joker: they "just do things."

The two or three times I have, regrettably, asked students to bring their phones to class, here are some of the scenarios I have run into:

1)  Student drops his new iPhone (Who the hell gives a 13-year-old an iPhone?) in a snow bank, then drops it in the parking lot on the way inside.  Crack, snap, tears, regret.

2)  Student, when asked to take pictures to use as inspiration for haiku, takes fifteen pictures of a dog turd, then shows everybody where the dog turd is.  So many turd pictures....*shudder.

3)  Student only takes vaguely creepy pictures of girls in the class.  He never smiles as he does this, nor as he browses the pictures in class in order to write a poem about them.  Sociopath?  You decide.

That's not to say there weren't small successes.  Some students took amazing pictures of a sunrise through a chain link fence.  Their poems were equally amazing.  Some students found a nest of garter snakes and created some interestingly creepy haiku.  Some students really created something of value.

Some students took pictures of dog shit.

I blame myself for not managing the classroom better in the face of such limitless technology.  Whether out of fear or laziness, I haven't repeated the assignment since last March.

I want to connect to students through their technological channels.  I want them to have access to tools that our school can't afford to purchase in class-sized quantities.

I also don't want to lose more of my precious, increasingly sparse hair trying to manage a class full of kids wielding tiny laptops that I can't hope to monitor at all times.

 Maybe I need to follow the age-old adage presented by The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift:  "If you ain't out of control, you ain't in control."