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Jamie Doward reports at The Guardian that according to a recent study in the UK, the effect of banning mobile phones from school premises adds up to the equivalent of an extra week’s schooling over a pupil’s academic year with the test scores of students aged 16 improved by 6.4% after schools banned mobile phones, “We found that not only did student achievement improve, but also that low-achieving and low-income students gained the most. We found the impact of banning phones for these students was equivalent to an additional hour a week in school, or to increasing the school year by five days." In the UK, more than 90% of teenagers own a mobile phone; in the US, just under three quarters have one. In a survey conducted in 2001, no school banned mobiles. By 2007, this had risen to 50%, and by 2012 some 98% of schools either did not allow phones on school premises or required them to be handed in at the beginning of the day. But some schools are starting to allow limited use of the devices. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has lifted a 10-year ban on phones on school premises, with the city’s chancellor of schools stating that it would reduce inequality.
The research was carried out at Birmingham, London, Leicester and Manchester schools before and after bans were introduced (PDF). It factored in characteristics such as gender, eligibility for free school meals, special educational needs status and prior educational attainment. “Technological advancements are commonly viewed as increasing productivity,” write Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy. “Modern technology is used in the classroom to engage students and improve performance. There are, however, potential drawbacks as well, as they could lead to distractions.”
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 18 2015, @04:13AM
The increasing lockdown, badge-for-access, badge-for-bathroom, zero-judgement/zero-tolerance, and no cell phone policies are designed to create the perfect Prussian worker. Obedient, unquestioning, servile soldiers and wage slaves.
Maybe the problem is the teachers are doing the same material for decades of their careers.
Maybe the problem is the smarter kids are bored with the easy material. No one learns Greek anymore.
Maybe the problem is the paper-and-book learning methods are outdated in a digital world.
But fixing that would require real change. Let's ban cell phones instead.
Everyone is the same. Everyone will do as their commander orders. Everyone will obey.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday May 18 2015, @05:58AM
The school system is indeed intentionally missing the internet based possibilities for dissemination of knowledge.
Having said that, smartphones are intentionally doing the same.
And this in TFS:
“Technological advancements are commonly viewed as increasing productivity"
Is one big lie.
Examples, windows in the nineties, android, apple and systemd now.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @03:11PM
Let's ban cell phones instead.
Lets be real what the cell phone is used for.
I know what I would have been doing if I had one of these when I was in school. It most certainly would NOT have been school work.
In the halls whatever. In the room put that sucker away.
Not sure what changed but if I was messing around with something I brought in from home the teacher just took it away. I may get it back at the end of the year (maybe). Did teachers suddenly stop confiscating things? They always have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @05:33PM
No one learns Greek anymore.
Is that really the best use of limited instruction time?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday May 19 2015, @02:50AM
Learning Greek may not be all that useful, but it does teach a different character set, which may make learning non-European languages easier than just learning another Latin character set language.
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