Why students should be allowed to bring mobile phones at school

A new innovative approach to cumputerised teaching, for free

Handsets make up most of our lives today

I am a student of class XII, Science, and as such I often find myself trying to grab as much of the discussions going on in the class as possible. Indian ways are traditional ways, and it’s very difficult to change them at all, unless you stand out to be a great leader of the people. As such, in-class notes are still taken using the traditional ways of copying them to notebooks. I am not saying that pen and paper don’t have their uses, in fact it’s still one of the most convenient and reliable ways to store notes, but times have changed.

C'mon folks, it's the 21st century, the time to change is now. Today, nearly every student has mobile phones, and nearly every mobile phone has advanced capabilities such as voice recording, video capturing, taking photos, making a to-do list and so on. Some of them, especially smartphones, have specialized software for various education purposes, such as a software periodic table, an in-built dictionary, a graphing software to name a few. Used properly, these can help us change the future, and change, i.e improve the very way of learning. Just think about it for a moment, suppose all students from class IX onwards are allowed to take their mobile handsets with them. Now, the teachers enters traditionally, starts working on the board, maybe deriving a relation in mathematics. While simultanously taking down notes, students can switch on voice-recorder of their mobile phones that would then capture the whole discussion going on. Storage space is getting cheaper by the way, and storing an entire year’s lectures would be a matter of joke. Additionally, we can take snapshots of the entire blackboard/whiteboard if we feel, thus digitizing the process of note-taking. We can later print them out to get an exact process of the derivation itself.

Today's mobiles have evolved greatly

Here are the many advantages of allowing students to bring in their handsets:

1. Voice Recording: Everything that goes on inside the class can be recorded. This would prove to be a major productivity-booster for us students, and also for teachers. Storing lectures, we would be able to play them back later at home to understand the topic better if we feel so. Suppose a student had been ill and couldn’t come to school for a few days. We would be able to share the mp3s of lectures with him/her, thus helping him getting updated.
Secondly, internet is everywhere. Facebook, emails etc would then be used for sharing lecture notes in between various students, not only from the same school, but from different schools as well. This would create a healthier degree of competition between schools, and would also broaden the perspective of students. Listening to different lectures on the same topic would help us understand it better.
Finally, some may feel that this would create a rift between different economic classes, but I beg to differ. Already we see how money benefits the rich and the lack of it affects the poor. If we should consider  throwing away the idea itself, we should also try to uproot all private schools and coaching classes then, because they also curb equality between various classes (providing their services to the economically advantaged). Nearly every student can afford to have a mobile phone in cities nowadays, and even the cheapest phones do have voice recording capabilities. You don’t need to buy a computer or an expensive phone for this purpose. It would rather save money.

2. Efficient use of the camera: Students would be able to take photos of the entire blackboard, thus storing the entire multitude of notes written on it. Later, if we choose to do so, we can re-check the derivation steps using the photos. Digital memory is not only cheap, it is also re-writable. If we face a shortage of space, we can simply wipe out unused notes and make space for new, useful ones.

Cyber-learning should be encouraged

3. Video recording capabilities: Imagine you are in the lab. The teacher is demonstrating a very complicated experiment, and you want to understand it well. You can just record a video of the entire event, and then examine it whenever you want. This benefits learning, digitizing it. Also, sharing of videos by students from various schools would help make the internet a better tool for learning. This also gives students from rural and remote areas to ‘get connected’, and even the people who did not get a chance to get themselves educated could benefit from this idea. This process would deliver learning virtually to everywhere in the world, and would greatly benefit India.

4. Advanced apps: Many students carry additional materials such as dictionaries, extra books etc. But applications developed for mobile handsets could serve as all-in-one apps for each purpose. For example, understanding the meaning of the word ‘inextricable’ would no longer be a problem in the English class. Also, using the internet, we would be able to bring in more resources from the web for learning about the topic, making he discussion healthier.

The world is developing,
shouldn't we start now?

5. Evidence: Many teachers are accused of conducting brutal treatments to their students, and then get away with it thanks to the lack of witnesses. Carrying a mobile handset would enable the students to alert their parents and family in case of any emergency, both inside and outside schools, and would also help the courts in getting fresh evidence of any crime (photos and videos can especially help). Digital pieces of evidence can thus settle legal matters.

6. A greater sense of responsibility: It is true that students would occasionally break each others’ handsets, misuse the devices to connect to facebook during the classes, maybe watch a  ouple of youtube videos etc. But at the same time, this radical change would also make them more responsible. Initially there might be problems, but gradually we’ll see the emergence of a more connected, social and intelligent generation of students would utilise the internet and other digital inventions to maximize the process of learning.

There might be a few additional problems, such as incoming and outgoing calls during classes, but they can simply be avoided using Silent mode or by disabling the SIM card during period. Making a penalty for calls during classes would greatly help.

My Indian friends, it is my humble request to you all to consider the matter.