Teenagers and young adults no longer talk they text!

An interesting phenomena has occurred over the last decade. According to a new article from the Washington Post, with the rise of text messaging among teenagers and young adults has come a demise of talking on the phone. The preference of texting over talking is not limited to teenagers, may adults in their 20's and 30's also prefer to text message. According to Nielsen, the national average monthly voice minutes have gone from 1,200 to 900 from 2008 to 2010. And amongst teenagers and young adults (18 to 24) the monthly average went from 600 messages a month in 2008 two years ago to more than 1,400 in 2010. The cost of text messaging has also declined over the past few years, according to Nielsen, the average customer in the US now pays about 1 penny per text message, thus making it a very accessible form of communication.

I think this information is relevant to K-12 education and teachers. Knowing that the preferred form of communication is quickly changing from a phone call to text message informs educators that schools should be taking full advantage of that form of communication. While some schools are stating to use Text Message Alert systems (I like the free system of http://txtblaster.com), and a few educators are now doing some integrating of text messaging into their core curricula (such as this English teacher who has his students texting poetry ), many are still shying away from this new literacy (even dismissing it as a negative form of communication). Knowing that text messaging is fast becoming the #1 form of communication reminds me that it will also be an important literacy for the 21st century job force.

Teenager Ethan Davids describes how essential his phone is to him

I recently read an article written by a 17 year old high school student. The article focused on why the teenager believes cell phones are essential tools for learning. Below are a few excerpts from the article

"As a student who has experienced some very rowdy and distracting classes, I know that mobile phones can cause huge distractions for not only students, but teachers as well. I am also aware that mobile phones can be a danger to the school environment; however I believe they can still have their benefits in the classroom."

"An argument I have never understood is that youngsters have become too reliant on their mobiles. Nowadays mobile phones can be as useful to people as a pencil and paper, and I have never come across an argument that adults have become too reliant on those!"

The author, Ethan, makes an excellent point at the end of the article, and a point that many teachers who have allowed cell phone use in learning seem to echo, which is that once cell phones are allowed to be out in the open in schools, rather than banned, then teachers can control who, what, where and how the cell phones are used. Here is his quote,

"Eventually I hope mobile phones will be looked upon in a much more reasonable way and take a more important role in education. After all, there’s only so much fun you can have with editing teachers’ faces!"

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.

Send Group Text, Email, And Audio Phone Messages to Students or Parents With One Click for Free!

I recently came across the site SendGM, which is set up to send mass group messages (and receive replies) to cell phones (both text and audio) as well as email accounts at the same time! It is an incredibly easy site to use. Teachers can sign up for a free account, add their contact's preferences (e.g. text, phone call, or email), and then schedule a mass message to be sent at a particular time, and select if they want the recipients to reply or respond to the message. All responses are collected in the teacher's SendGM account!

This is an excellent resource for administrators to send out mass messages to parents or community members using their preferred tool (call, email, text). This is also a perfect resource for teacher's to send out mass messages to parents and/or students. Some examples would include homework reminders, short homework quizzes, polling questions, or other class-related announcements. Under the free plan one account can have up to 25 contacts. If teachers or administrators need to have more contacts they can pay a $79 a year for 100 contacts or 149 a year for 250 contacts (there are more plans as well). This is by far one of the best messaging services I have come across. I really like that it sends messages to the recipients preferred form of communication (and you don't have to send 3 separate messages).

Does banning cell phones in school cause more problems than integrating them?

"Thomas" a student who read my blog, posted this comment:

"The whole having to hide the cell phone is really why so many students are not able to pay attention. If we were allowed our cell phones as we work, we would pay a lot more attention, since we don't have to keep glancing down at the cell phone we are currently hiding under a table. I am able to avoid the whole messaging thing during school, but if they allowed it i have the feeling my grades would go higher, and my learning would improve"

What are your thoughts? Do you think that by not allowing cell phones in the classroom it causes more issues with distraction than by allowing them?