Schools That Ban Mobile Phones See Better Academic Results 113
HughPickens.com writes: 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."
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."
imagine that. (Score:1)
now get rid of the stupid ipads and chromebooks (as in, technology in technology classes only) and results will be even better.
Re:imagine that. (Score:5, Insightful)
My biggest concerns with the introduction of technology into the classroom are that first, we don't really have any killer-app that justifies the expense, and second, that by using general-purpose computers we are making it very easy for students to use the computers for a purpose other than what's intended. It's extremely easy to get off-task when you have the bulk of the Internet at your disposal, even if there's content filtering. General purpose computers give students almost unlimited choices in what to do, and only one of those choices is the intended one.
We need the right applications that don't yet seem to exist, and we need computing platforms that are restricted in the use of the computer, to make it function better as an educational platform. We also need to stop introducing too much technology too early, so that students develop basic skills and demonstrate proficiency before they get electronic crutches.
Re:imagine that. (Score:4, Interesting)
>as such the computer would only do the one function that we were to engage in.
Then you had kids like me, who would hit CTRL-RESET to drop to BASIC, then write amusing programs to pass the time. :)
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The technology has many killer apps that detract kids from listening to the teacher and doing homework, while still getting good grade by sneaking the right answer on the device. This goes on unnoticed until they are tested in the old fashioned way: with pen an paper. And at that time it is already too late to undo months maybe a year of slacking.
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I"m still trying to figure this one out.
How the hell does not talking/texting on a cell phone during school hours exacerbate inequality??
If anything, I would think everyone NOT having a phone on them during school hours would put things MORE on an equal playing ground, no?
Re:imagine that. (Score:4, Interesting)
...we need computing platforms that are restricted in the use of the computer, to make it function better as an educational platform.
Cheap Chromebooks the sim card explicitly removed and without the wifi password used to fill that niche, but now most new Chromebooks are touch-enabled and they'll be able to run Android soon. In other words, Google is about to mess it all up for parents.
And it won't be long until one kid figures out how he can download an apk to a usb stick or a memory card, and can play it on a friend's Chromebook. By the time 5th period rolls around, everyone in his school will have seen it done. And within a week or two, all kids who use Chromebooks in the entire United States will have seen it done (even if they themselves do not have direct internet access).
At that point, parents will just have resell their Chromebooks on Ebay and trade them in, for either paper notepads or old-fashioned electric type-writers. Or they'll be forced to just place the Chromebooks under lock and key like they've been forced to do with the wifi hub, the router, and everything else.
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Re:imagine that. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few smart kids screwing around to find workarounds isn't the same thing as all of the kids being able to get to anything at any time. Working on the device to find workarounds at least requires engagement and interest to focus on a single task.
Spoken like someone who has never taught a group of 15 yr olds in a computer lab. I assure you, if it allows them to play games, get out of work, or look cool; the dumbest 15 year old kid will turn into a computer whiz in minutes. I've seen kids who can't speak with even passable grammar and terrible grades complete complex hacks to get around doing work. Many times the hack was harder and more useful than that lesson being taught. People are weird, kids are even weirder.
If people are weird and if kids are even weirder.. (Score:1)
... then people are actually suffering from 'degradation effect' after they've grown up
Re:imagine that. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few smart kids screwing around to find workarounds isn't the same thing as all of the kids being able to get to anything at any time.
That's not the point I was making.
All it takes is one smart kid to screw around. Then, he'll be so proud of himself if he finds something, that he'll find ways to show off his trick to as many other kids as possible (especially to the other kids with Chromebooks).
The same goes for a kid that finds the workaround online, or stumbles onto it through social media. He'll brag to other kids as if he invented the workaround himself.
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They're all working with the same faculties, you know; geniuses aren't endowed with better brains.
I have a large and fairly complex plan that puts a permanent end to all homelessness and hunger in the United States, costing less than our current welfare system, softening the blow of economic downturns and high unemployment, and even satisfying the problems of social security old-age pensions. It's a simple set of core actions with piles and piles of justification and analysis attached, rather than a netw
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Nothing contrary here, just highlighting a thought not mentioned yet. To me (local district's IT dept) the takeaway is that whatever t
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It's a bit simpler than that.
There are all kinds of strategies and techniques geniuses use--the same way a woodworker uses a rotary router upon wood--to achieve maximum utility from their brain. It is a simple tool requiring skill to produce results, as you apply skill with e.g. Krita to draw a digital painting: one tool, hundreds of technical procedures to produce complex results.
One of the most primary strategies used by the greatest geniuses--not simply experts who excel in a single field of interest
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My biggest concerns with the introduction of technology into the classroom are that first, we don't really have any killer-app that justifies the expense,
Not entirely correct: As a math teacher I have found that Desmos (.com or app) is a remarkably good graphing calculator for mid-range algebra 2 students. When the alternative is an $80-120 graphing calculator, it has its appeal. Khanacademy.org has extreme value, when used for extra practice, and digital copies of texts are more prevalent, though current methods of DRM make them often more costly over time than the physical version, if not more up-to-date.
It's extremely easy to get off-task when you have the bulk of the Internet at your disposal, even if there's content filtering. General purpose computers give students almost unlimited choices in what to do, and only one of those choices is the intended one.
This is absolutely true, and the main reason that
Schools that ban game consoles see better results (Score:3)
Shocking
Re:Schools that ban game consoles see better resul (Score:4, Insightful)
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New York mayor Bill de Blasio has lifted a 10-year ban on phones on school premises
They were banned a decade ago. That's part of how they were able to do the study. It's in the summary. Have your phone on you?
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When I was a kid, we didn't even know what basketballs were. We used to have to throw severed heads through hoops, and let me tell you, it's tough to dribble a severed head. And instead of the "pick and roll" we had the "disembowel and roll". That's why nobody wanted to play defense.
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We didn't bother with hoops because we never got in shooting range, on account of how steep the court was. Both ways.
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Both ways? You had a full court!? And you couldn't be bothered to set up hoops to shoot from half-court? Dang, you're the most entitled of them all. You're all lucky to have a court - we had to play on the street shooting through the broken window of whatever car was being robbed at the time. When it came to picking teams, you picked the players that were best at dodging cars and bullets.
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Im all for banning phones because they are a distraction but lets stop with the social justice mmm'kay?
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Older than dirt is the idea of school uniforms. Which would effectively reduce the perception of inequality in a school.
You know, I don't think I would have minded a school uniform in my public school, if it was reasonably comfortable and didn't look heinous.
I don't think we should ban things due to "inequality", but being harassed about what you wear is something you get in places with a high degree of immaturity, such as high school and LA. And honestly, from the other side, there is envy from the have-
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Right, because everybody would only have one set of clothes otherwise.
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trying to force every discussion on anything into a discussion on social justice is not only pointless, but it turns people off of your cause.
But it's pretty relevant in a story involving the disadvantages that poorer kids face at school, although no doubt it's their own fault for having stupid parents.
Re:Reduce Inequality? (Score:5, Interesting)
If that's really what lifting the ban does, then I'm fine with it. I just don't see how allowing phones will accomplish this (ie - I have an iPhone 6 and you're stuck with a hand-me-down MicroTac).
Lower-income schools tend to have more security such as metal detectors and bag searches in NYC. This caused an odd business to pop into existence where students would pay private businesses (usually vans that stopped outside the schools in the mornings and afternoons) to store the phones during the day. Public schools in more affluent areas don't have these security measures, so students there could get away with just carrying the devices into the school. Keep in mind a lot of kids walk to school in NYC so the worse the neighborhood, the more you probably want your kid to have a phone to call home in case of emergency, and yet due to the increased school security and the blanket ban on cell phones, they are more likely to be the ones forced to either not do so or pay for storage during the day.
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Re:Reduce Inequality? (Score:4, Informative)
Savvy entrepreneur sees school cell phone bans as opportunity - runs mobile rental space for gadgets [nydailynews.com]
More Unpredictable Side Effects of Technology: Cell Phone Storage Trucks for Students [core77.com]
Businesses make $4M off NYC students by holding their cellphones during school [nypost.com] NYC Plans To Lift Ban On Student Cellphones In Schools [huffingtonpost.com]
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Then seriously have the phone locked up at the front office or something. What they should be doing is making the ability to store the phone during school hours more equal, rather than just giving in and allowing them to be carried during the day.
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Then seriously have the phone locked up at the front office or something. What they should be doing is making the ability to store the phone during school hours more equal, rather than just giving in and allowing them to be carried during the day.
It will be up to each school to determine their own rules. If they don't, then a set of default rules will be used (phones put away during class, can be used during lunch, etc. It's in the article in TFA I believe).
Re:Reduce Inequality? (Score:4, Informative)
Um, they do have lockers in NYC don't they? Wouldn't that be logical place to store a phone?
Yes, but they are generally INSIDE the school, past the metal detectors. The old rule banned the phones on school grounds period. They were not allowed in the door.
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You mean the Bush phone? After all the first cellphones were issued in 2008, when Bush was president.
"6.41%" (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual, don't trust journalists. :(
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6% of a standard deviation is essentially zero
Re:"6.41%" (Score:5, Insightful)
6.41% of a standard deviation, according to TFA. Not exactly the same thing.
As usual, don't trust journalists. :(
When I was doing my masters degree I attended lectures where professors allowed laptops in class. Some people used them for taking notes like I did but a sizeable number of students just sat there posting on Facebook, web-surfing or playing FarmVille or some other dumb ass flash game. I'll never understand why people do that, they pay an arm and a leg in school admission fees, spend the entire semester goofing off and are then surprised when they flunk out or pass the course by the skin of their teeth. I don't think banning laptops, tablets and phones will do much good, people will just find another way to goof off but I can relate to why teachers want to ban these devices. It's the students who goof off all semester who blame everybody but themselves and write the most scathingly critical reviews of a course and its teacher and that's bloody frustrating when you know perfectly well that their failure is nobody's fault but their own.
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When I was doing my masters degree I attended lectures where professors allowed laptops in class. Some people used them for taking notes like I did but a sizeable number of students just sat there posting on Facebook, web-surfing or playing FarmVille or some other dumb ass flash game. I'll never understand why people do that, they pay an arm and a leg in school admission fees, spend the entire semester goofing off and are then surprised when they flunk out or pass the course by the skin of their teeth. I don't think banning laptops, tablets and phones will do much good, people will just find another way to goof off but I can relate to why teachers want to ban these devices. It's the students who goof off all semester who blame everybody but themselves and write the most scathingly critical reviews of a course and its teacher and that's bloody frustrating when you know perfectly well that their failure is nobody's fault but their own.
This. I'm also seeing people waste lecture time on dead-tree shit like sudoku and hanjie, as well as good old social chatting, so it's certainly not a question of banning this or that technology. The really dumb thing is that when exams come up, they need to spend more time catching up on the material they could have learned when it was first presented, while I can enjoy my free time posting on Slashdot.
I understand that people learn in different ways, but perhaps those who don't dig lectures could be us
are the lectures good or just reading the text boo (Score:2)
are the lectures good or just reading the text book? if they are just reading then people will goof off is forced lectures.
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Some people don't give a shit about life and so they don't give a shit about school. But some of those people fucking off in class already know the material and are just there because the class is mandatory, it costs just as much to challenge the course as it does to take it, and if you fail at challenging it then you have to pay twice. Also, many people don't even know there is a process for testing out of a class.
When you make attendance mandatory, you get people fucking off in class.
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Is mandatory attendan
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In neither case do I see why you would waste lecture time by playing computer games.
How Harrison Bergeron (Score:2)
Introducing noise making distractions to reduce intellectual inequality.
so...one smartphone = 5 school days? (Score:2)
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but how many Rhode Islands is it?
Now if we could only do it for drivers... (Score:3)
We might see a great deal of improvement, particularly for the underachieving ones.
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What is an "underachieving" driver? Someone who doesn't know how to park in parallel? Someone who only drives a few miles per year?
Re:In class is a problem- not so much at school (Score:5, Insightful)
Mainly they said they banned phones, but technically any kind of electronic device was banned. It was the stupidest policy ever when near EVERY kid (it was a well to do area) had one in school. Nobody took them out in class...
Sounds to me like the policy was incredibly successful. The purpose of the policy was not to actually take away everyone's devices. The purpose of the policy was to prevent devices from becoming a distraction, and to give administrators and teachers recourse if a device posed a distraction. This works even if the device is somewhat concealed, like a music player connected to headphones going through the students clothing up to skin-colored wires to earbuds hidden behind hair- with this stated policy if the student was using the device in lieu of paying attention in class then the school could confiscate the device to remove that distraction from the student.
I went to high school just before the cell phone migrated its way into teenagers' hands. I still got to see my friends; we simply had to make plans when and were to meet up. I would even argue that my friends were better friends, because we actually did stuff together and had common interests, not an electronic means of connection requiring little to no effort to maintain that one could just play lip-service to. The cell phone is a convenient tool, but all-waking-day connectivity doesn't mean that things are actually better simply through having it.
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You are rejecting the results of an empirical study because you don't like the conclusion. What "logic".
Surprise? (Score:1)
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Electronics beep and buzz at you. I'd say that probably turning them off, and leaving them off is the best of all possible worlds in that regard.
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Or maybe they just care more... (Score:2)
Hence banning mobile phones may be not the cause of the better results. Correlation is not causation. Causation needs specific, strong supporting evidence.
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Hence banning mobile phones may be not the cause of the better results. Correlation is not causation. Causation needs specific, strong supporting evidence.
Who cared more? This was studied in schools that changed their policies, not a comparison between schools that had the ban and those that didn't. From TFP: "We compare the gains in test scores across and within schools before and after mobile phone bans are introduced. "
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There is a time-axis. They may have thought about academic problems and may well have changed other things as well.
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Yeah, if you look outside the USA, the schools that cane their students (for everything from not doing homework to being late for school) get very good results. If all you care about is performance on standardized tests then don't just ban the cell phones, bring back the cane. But I know some students in such school rather well - and to say that they aren't happy would be a massive understatement. It's not just random chance that the most economically successful Asian countries do so poorly on the World Hap
Umm (Score:1)
*duh*, or is it derp?
Wait... (Score:2)
Wait... there are actually schools out there that don't ban mobile phones?!?
While they're at it, why not allow them to bring an Xbox into the classroom?
Re:cell phones (Score:4, Insightful)
Heard of teachers? They are supposed to be in charge, and are the ones who should be calling ambulances, fire departments and police if needed. The kids should be focused on learning, not facebook.
One more way to showcase inequality (Score:2)
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Likewise, phone use is complex. I am much more concerned with the student who never turns off the phone at home
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If the parent think it is important for their student to have pretty shoes, that is very difficult to overcome.
No, it's not. After the sentence in the compulsory school uniform section saying that you have to wear the approved trousers, shirt, etc, you just add the words "and only plain black lace up shoes may be worn" or something.
Kids won't know or care about whether their boring school shoes cost GBP10 or GBP500.
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Kids need to have phones in school,
I agree. Like at the front desk or something.
The real story (Score:2)
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no text.
Yes. I live in a low income school district and volunteer at the school and almost all of the students have mobile phones. In fact, as far as I can see, there appears to be an inverse relationship between income and cell phone proliferation. It might be that the latter contributes to the perpetuation of the former.
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..and another study will disprove it. (Score:1)
N/T
Back in the day, a phone would lead to... (Score:1)
1) Confiscation of device and collected into a school "evidence" bag
2) Detainment while the police arrives
3) K9 sweep of your locker and any "associates"
4) In school suspension for at least a week
But, apparantly, times have changed and having a cell phone or pager is no big deal. The original reason for their draconian response was that they thought you were a drug dealer.
They would also confiscate CD pla
read at Maker Faire to an educator (Score:2)