From Business News Daily
I give up. I just can't win the battle against smartphones. They're too fun and exciting. They capture students' attention like nothing before. And they're addicting. I honestly see cell phone and smartphone usage as an addiction. To be quite honest I'm not paid enough to deal with it, nor am I trained to deal with addictions.My students can barely go all class without checking their Facebook, Kakao Talk, play games, or writing messages messages. The funny thing is that they're not really dealing with people, they're dealing with a machine. They get nervous and agitated if they can't check their smartphones. How bad is it? A lot of my students sleep with their smartphones next to them or under their pillow. It's the first thing they check in the morning and the last when they go to sleep at night.
I know people who have successfully used smartphones in class for activities, phoning for example works well. Doing research is great too. You no longer have to book the computer lab if they just need to read stuff online. However, for the majority of my class I really don't want anything to do with smartphones. I leave mine in my office on silent when I go to class.
Some teachers I know collect the phones at the beginning of class and put them on a front table or desk that way they can ensure they don't get stolen. Others make their students turn them off. Others let them have their phones but take them away when they use them. Others take off points for phone usage.
I'm in the latter group. I've tried to take away phones when I catch them using them in class and I've played tug-of-war with students over them. It's not worth it for me. I teach adults. They need to exercise self-control. I tell them at the beginning of the semester that if they use their phone they lose points for the day. Of course I'll catch students using their phones and they'll immediately apologise, but to be honest, it's no skin off my nose: they simply lose points and I move on with my lesson.
