Cell phones have become and extra limb for so many students today. I’ve seen kids go into full blown panic attacks when faculty or administration has taken up their phones. Just this week a student verbally threatened to physically harm a teacher for taking his cell phone up in class! To further the issue students think answering a text message or call from a parent is an exception to the school policy. The more ridiculous thing is that many parents agree.

How do you take what is becomming such a “necessary” device in our lives and prevent it from being a distraction? As a technology teacher I would love to be able to harness the excitement surrounding these devices and integrate them into lessons. I would love to expand on how these devices work and explore their hardware and software. My computer science students still think I’m kidding when I tell them programming for cell phones is a booming career. They don’t know anything about what is behind them, only how to use them. However, this is probably not something I will be able to explore within the confines of my school walls anytime soon because cell phones are “bad”.

Yes, we have been left behind. I say let’s get our phones out and make educational friends with them.