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High School To Allow Use Of Mobile Phones In Classrooms

Wed, 14 Oct 2009

A top school in South Yorkshire is to become the first in the country to let pupils use mobile phones in class as a learning aid.

Notre Dame High School in Sheffield is planning to lift the restrictions on mobile use in the classroom later this month, with teachers at the technology specialist school claiming mobile devices of all kinds have a role to play in the modern curriculum.

Assistant headteacher Paul Haigh said mobiles, MP3 players and gaming devices were a "huge untapped resource" for teaching and learning .

"It would be great if students could have access to a range of tools, such as handheld computers, cameras, voice recorders, laptops and netbooks, but it would be very expensive and wasteful to maintain and upgrade all the equipment."

He added: "Most students own many of these devices anyway - they're just hidden in their schoolbags. What's more they're experts in using them, knowing all the short cuts and characteristics of their own equipment as they use it every day."

Mr Haigh, who is responsible for innovation at the comprehensive, said it did not make sense for schools to allow the use of netbooks but not mobile phones, many of which are now capable of recording sound, taking digital photographs and accessing the web.

Notre Dame already uses IT extensively in the classroom and is currently developing a policy for students to use their mobile handsets around the school grounds and log on to its wireless network .

However, Mr Haigh stressed that the teacher will have full control over whether students can use their mobile in the classroom and how they use them.

Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "Whatever young people bring into school there is a chance that it is misused in some way."

"We mustn’t be Luddite about the technology young people take for granted."
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