Electronic Devices Policies

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on May 7, 2007 at 5:05pm

Our school district is in the middle of revising it's cell phone policy. I blogged about it here: http://mizmercer.edublogs.org/2007/04/30/cell-phone-policy/

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Christopherson on May 8, 2007 at 9:55pm

Our school division allows schools to create their own policy. This is great for us because we can work with the students in creating how things will work. So, we have a no cells in class policy unless there is an emergency. At that time, the teacher is to be notified who will be calling. We have found this to be successful. Cells are to remain in lockers or bookbags and, if a student pulls one out or uses one, the teacher is to take it away. We then have various options depending on the frequency of a student having the phone out during class. For us, parents have no problem having us keep them for the day after 3 misuses. Parents have been very cooperative since we have decided that banning them would be impossible. We are trying to have a proactive approach nowing that, in short order, students will be able to use the phones for doing work. Actually, some have been using them in one of my classes to take pictures for their class work. With my and the teacher's permission of course:)

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Permalink Reply by Sue R. on May 9, 2007 at 5:42pm

Kelly, I'm curious. What percentage of your kids HAVE cell phones? Is there a class divide/access issue? If there are kids who don't have cell phones, how do you get them the experience of taking a picture for their class work?

I'm really interested because it seems that my students are either "have-all-the-tech-toys" or "have-nots" these days, with no middle ground in sight. I have one student whose family chooses not to have television, even--and one student whose family wanted to bring in their personal HDTV for his latest presentation so that his video would be the "best quality" possible.

I want to have my "have-nots" get access and experience, so they won't be lacking confidence or clueless when they move on to larger venues. I want to equalize some the class issues and make things more a matter of gaining experience, as well. Have you faced any of these issues, too?

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Permalink Reply by Richard on May 9, 2007 at 7:06am

My school, an elementary school, allows kids to bring electronic devices, but they must remain in the child's bookbag while in the school building. The idea being that since many kids have long bus rides, this allows them to use phones, games, etc. while on the bus.

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Permalink Reply by Jan Wee on May 9, 2007 at 6:22pm

I am also looking at policies and reviewing our existing ones. These might help... there are many on the web if you do an advanced search... I found these -- many more to review.

http://www.education-world.com/a_admin/admin/admin393.shtml for cell phone policy related article.
http://www.mers.k12.nj.us/content/view/51/141/
http://www.brownsburg.k12.in.us/GeneralDocuments/TAUPStudentFinal.pdf (pretty extensive coverage of devices)
www.cahokia.stclair.k12.il.us/AUP/AUP3_13_2006.doc
The NSBA has some files that look helpful http://www.nsba.org/storefront/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=15 but you would need to purchase these documents.
http://www.electronic-school.com/2000/09/0900sbot.html has several sample policies linked at bottom of the page.

Good luck.
Jan
http://www.mvsc.k12.in.us/AUPstudents.pdf

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Permalink Reply by Pam Shoemaker on May 9, 2007 at 8:27pm

I so much appreciate the suggestions and resources! A small committee in my district will soon be getting together to draft a proposal. Keep the suggestions coming. I will share what we come up with. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Jan Wee on May 10, 2007 at 5:41pm

Pam,
Glad that these might help you. If you do decide on an updated policy, please do share it with our group. I think we all grow a lot just through the sharing we do.
Take care and good luck.
Jan

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