The advent and popularity of Mobile Phones have ushered in an era of Communication Revolution. Such is the effect of this revolution that pretty much every student you come across will have a mobile phone. Students are using mobiles in colleges, high schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools. Kids as young as 10 years are being gifted Mobile phones. Parents give their children mobile phones to protect them from everyday risks involving personal security and safety. This widespread ownership of mobile phones requires certain guidelines which school administrators, teachers, students and parents need to take to ensure clear identification of potential issues involving mobile phones. This will help in ensuring the benefits that mobile phones provide (such as increased safety) can continue to be enjoyed by our students. Today more than one out of six people worldwide are mobile-phone subscribers and mobile telephones, digital cameras, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptops that are enabled with wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) are omnipresent. A culture of incessant contact has arrived which harbours a loss of a sense of place and a potential for amusing ourselves to death. Students have the facility of easy communication with the world beyond the classroom and an endless opportunity to engage with nearly endless entertainments and distractions For some philosophers of education, students must be within controlled environments to learn successfully and the mobile phone has been identified as a source of irritation, delinquency, and even crime. Initially, school authorities banned pager and cell-phone use inside school buildings to prevent them from being used for selling drugs or organizing gangs.
Advantages of Mobile Phones for Students
- Parents get reassurance that they can contact their child if they need to speak to them urgently. They can also keep a watch over their kids
- Some authorities feel that student use of mobile phones is a positive development. According to them the use of such advanced technology provides a sense of mastery and a feeling of goodness about themselves.
- It makes class management including attendance and administration, easier and more effective.
- On the time-management level, it enhances coordination between teachers and students.
- It provides students with greater access to the course and supplementary educational resources.
- Recreation in the form of games, music etc. are stress relievers
Disadvantages of Mobile Phones for Students
- The tidal wave of technology in Cell Phones breaks long-standing arrangements of control and hierarchy in schools
- Mobile-phone addiction is another major consequence, according to one study - one out of seven students felt addicted to their phones. This sense of addiction may correspond with dependency and heavy usage.
- Cell phones are increasingly being used for overcoming boredom, to display a high-status item rather than for social tasks. Students play video games on their cell phones during and after class. It is not uncommon for students to say that they could not live if they did not have their mobile phone.
- Mobile phoned also introduce a variety of problems including disruption of class, delinquency and erosion of teacher autonomy.
- Mobile phones have become a source of bullying among children and these are being aggravated by mobile phones. Threats to teachers and principals have become a common scenario
- Mobile communication devices have been used for blackmailing or extortion in educational settings and certain truants have students inside a school building and they use mobile phones to tell them when to return to avoid detection.
- Cheating on tests is another big misuse. Students who have completed their tests inform their mates about the answers during the exam either through mail or text.
- It also leads to disregard for authority. It also encourages such behaviour when students freely use mobile phones despite the ban on cell phones.
- Other students are often disturbed by another’s use of a mobile phone in the classroom
- More often than not these have become access points for observing and distribution of pornographic material
- A recent disturbing trend has emerged wherein students making love or students indulging in nudity get themselves filmed. These get either posted on the net or get distributed. Those who have not indulged in this activity are considered Outcasts or Uncool.
Proper Usage of Mobile Phones and Prevention of Misuse
- Schools and colleges can make reasonable rules for banning cell phones as disrupt the smooth running of the school and the education of other students.
- Mobile Detection devices which emit a beeping sound upon detection, should be used at educational institutes to discourage its use and entry.
- Certain rules which allow the usage of mobile phones only before or after school or during recess and lunch breaks. Also, students should not be allowed to use their mobile phones as MP3 players with or without headphones during study hours.
- Because of certain advantages of cell phones, these can be allowed but should be switched off and kept out of sight during classroom.
- Parents also need to understand that in cases of emergency they should contact the office, student services or other concerned authority. This will ensure quick contact and assistance in an appropriate way.
- Students should use only soundless features such as text messaging, answering services, call diversion and vibration alert to receive important calls. Mobile phones should not be used in any manner or place that is disruptive to the normal routine of the School.
- Students should protect their phone number by only giving it to friends when it is absolutely necessary and keeping a note of recipients. This can help protect the students’ number from falling into the wrong hands and guard against the receipt of insulting, threatening or unpleasant voice, text or picture messages.
- Mobile phones are a useful form of self-tutoring and Wireless application protocols (WAP) that use cell phones to access the internet to help users find definitions and reference information while on the move.
- Mobile phones connect students with teachers and other students and help them deal with class attendance issues, rearrange meetings, retrieve schedule and assignment data, discuss assignments, coordinate study groups, and seek help with academic and life problems.
- Mobile phone technology is a highly cost-effective source to increase communications of parent-teachers, other professionals, and schools and base offices for student-related issues.
- Administrators can delegate many time-consuming, repetitive tasks to mobile phones. At Korea’s Suk Myoung University, students use mobile phones to confirm attendance, enter libraries, buy food in the school dining hall, and prove identity.
- Finally, mobile phones allow parents to monitor their children remotely by helping them get to their appointments on time and reduce their anxieties about their children’s whereabouts. A location-monitoring service at a Korean school allows parents to confirm the location of their child within a school environment.
- Certain Do's and Don'ts can be enforced in the educational institutes. Schools which decide to allow the use of mobile phones at schools should clearly and regularly advise students, parents
- Mobile phones are not to be used:
- In changing rooms
- Toilets
- Gyms
- Bathrooms
- Swimming pools
- Or in any situation that may cause embarrassment or to discomfort to other persons, their fellow students, staff or visitors to the College.
- Disciplinary action should be taken against any student/s who is/are caught using a mobile phone for certain activities that are not permitted including cheating in exams or assessments.
