From Nuisance to Educational Technology 1

Running Head: FROM NUISANCE TO EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

From Nuisance to Educational Techology: iPods, Cell Phones, and Laptops

J. Autumn Barker

Spring 2009

EDU 540

Dr. Horvath
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Technology has become a mainstay in the educational system in the past decades.

Technology has many definitions from the process of creating dependable, consistent,

and repeatable solutions to tasks and problems. Technology also is the hardware and

software that results from the applications of technological processes. It is also defined

as a mix of both processes and products that are used when context is the combination of

technological processes and resultant products or where the process is indivisible from

the product. As technology has become integrated into education, it is considered

instructional technology, or the very specific use and knowledge of tools and crafts in

education more on the part of the teacher (Smaldino, Lowther, and Russell, 2008).

As technology has become an integral part of the educational system, technology

in itself has gotten to be more and more mobile. The mobility of technology and the

reliance on such items has taken a strong hold in many students’ lives. Known now as

the “Multitasking Generation”, students have more that hold their attention. In an article

in Time Magazine, the results of a survey of American children and teenagers done by the

Kaiser Family Foundation were reported. Teens and children are not only spending more

time using electronic media and technology, about 6.5 hours a day, but they were actually

packing more media into those hours – more like 8.5 hours worth due to “media

multitasking”. The group surveyed reported listening to iTunes, watching a DVD, IMing

friends, and working on homework all at the same time (Wallis, 2006). The mobility of

such technologies comes in the forms of iPods or MP3 players, cell phones, and laptops.

However, as students begin to bring these items into the classroom, the “modern

conveniences” become nuisances.

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Former General Magic and Phillips employee, Tony Fadell, invented a new and

better MP3 player than those that had been available up until 2001. After partnering with

Apple Computers and PortalPlayer, a software company, Fadell and his team had a

prototype of the iPod ready in eight months. Once the design and software were handed

to Apple, the user interface and the scroll wheel were added. Released on October 23,

2001, Apple publicly announced their portable music digital player the iPod, created

under project codename Dulcimer. The iPod was announced several months after the

release of iTunes, a program that converted audio CDs into compressed digital audio

files, and could organize your digital music collection. As the iPod has gone through

different generations that have made it capable of holding video, more music, pictures,

and even touch sensitive, sales have skyrocketed and the technology has become more

available. Now that millions of these have been sold, teenagers have found them easy to

use and available to them.

As teens enter classrooms, it is not uncommon to see iPod headphone cords down

their chests. Reported in the August 16, 2007, edition of Business Week, the iPod has

emerged as the brand that is “absolutely essential to teens” as found by The N, Viacom’s

teen network. Further research has shown that 78% of high school students own a

portable MP3 player and of this total, 82% of these players are iPods (Goodstein, 2007).

The list of uses for teens having an iPod grows each time that Apple adds another

generation to their stock. Not only can teens listen to music, but they can learn new

languages through MP3 recordings, listen to Podcasts, watch TV show episodes they

missed, and download one of the numerous applications that allow one’s iPod to be a
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game system, a portable weather predictor, and even a diabetes sugar level log. With all

that this technology can do, how do teachers compete with it in the classroom?

Students are also bringing their cell phones to school. It is hard to believe that

cell phones were a rarity fifteen years ago with the popularity of the device now. With

Samuel Morse’s invention of the electromagnetic telegraph in the 1830s, the beginning of

what would become the cellular revolution was begun. Martin Cooper, known as the

father of the cell phone, was hired by Motorola in 1954. He was hired to develop

portable devices which first came in the form of handheld police radios in 1967 for the

Chicago police department. From that point, he led Motorola’s cellular research

department. Cooper then set up a base station in New York with the first cell phone, the

Motorola Dyna-Tac. The first public showing was on April 3 1973, when Cooper placed

a call to a rival at the AT&T Bell Labs from the streets of New York. While this two and

a half pound phone is not like those we know today, the cellular and personal wireless

communication vision was being born on the streets of New York City that day. Many

revisions have taken place and today, there are more cellular subscribers than there are

wireline phone subscribers and phones weight as little as 3 ounces, as compared to the

once two and a half pound versions (Marples, 2008).

It would seem that these all too popular devices are in the hands of everyone.

Reardon (2008) reports that about four in five teenagers carry a cell phone. They have

become almost as important as the clothing they wear. Students believe that their phone

is a vital part of their identity and a person’s popularity can be gauged by the phone he or

she uses. Teens use cell phones for practical reasons, like getting rides and for

safety/parental concerns, but they also use their phone for text messaging and games
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(Reardon, 2008). Teens with cell phones normally send 440 text messages each week

with more than 110 being sent during class hours. Many students even admitted that they

routinely ignored the rules and bans on phone usage at school (AFP, 2009). Because

teens see phones as a status symbol and a necessity, how can instructors get students to

ignore the ring or buzz and pay attention in class?

When many think about technology, the brain automatically thinks

computers and our modern day students are no exception. While the laptop came much

later, Ed Roberts coined the term “personal computer” in 1975 with his introduction of

the Altair 8800. This computer relied on switches to input data and output data was

produced by a series of turning off and on lights. In 1981, the Osborne Computer

Company released the Osborne 1, which is considered the first of the modern day laptops.

Created so that workers could have a more portable way to work, these laptops were

extremely heavy and had very small displays. As the 1980s progressed, more companies

got involved in the evolution of the laptop. Gavilan produced the Gavilan Mobile

Computer in 1983, Radio Shack released the TRS-80 Model 100 in 1983, and IMB

introduced the 5155 Portable Personal Computer in 1984. Before Compaq invented the

SLT.286 laptop in 1988, none of the previous computers could support graphics. As the

1990s began, faster and sleeker models that had more storage, ports, and connectors were

created. The displays were much improved and the main goal was to keep the weight of

the computers down (Roseberry, n.d.). The models many use today are much more

advanced than the early models and have become part of many users’ everyday life.

Students are not an exception to this rule. While the total number of teens having

laptops is unclear, the number is growing because many schools require laptops. In a
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parent and teen survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2006,

twenty-five percent of the 935 teens interviewed had their own laptop (Steele, 2008).

While many students use their laptop to take notes or do homework, some professors and

instructors are banning them from the classroom because ninety-five percent of students

admit to using their laptops for purposes other than classroom note taking. David Cole,

professor of law at Georgetown University is one of the professors who do not allow

them in his classroom. He sites the most common response to any questions he asks of

those using their laptop in class as “Could you repeat the question?” Now that many

campuses are wirelessly connected to the internet, students can sometimes be surprised

that they aren’t allowed in lectures. “Laptops also create a temptation to the many other

things one can do there — surf the Web, check e-mail, shop for shoes, play solitaire, or

instant-message friends. That’s not only distracting to the student who is checking

baseball scores and statistics but for all those who see him and many others doing

something besides being involved in class. It also takes the student out of the classroom

discussion, which itself has collective costs for the learning environment as a whole

(Cole, 2008).

With students having access to these technological tools, is it possible to use them

for good in the classroom? Though the use of most of the tools are banned on school

grounds because they are a nuisance in the classroom and a disruption to the school day,

is it possible that as instructors, the use could be incorporated as a way to engage

students? The Department of Education has cited that when students are involved in using

technology in the classroom, especially as a tool for communicating with others, they are

taking on a more active role than that of just being lectured at. Using technology leads
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students to be more actively thinking about the information being studied, making

choices, and using different skills than those of simply listening in a teacher-lead lesson.

It would also seem that there are great benefits to using technology in the classroom,

including increased motivation. Teachers and students themselves are often surprised by

the level of accomplishment students can reach who has shown much less initiative in the

past. Teachers also see enhanced self esteem in students who use technology. The

increase in competence after understanding and completing the technology-based task as

well as the student’s awareness of how valuable technology is in our culture has led to

increases in students’ sense of self worth (Department of Education, n.d.) With benefits

such as this, using the banned tools in the classroom may not only give teachers a way to

bond with students, but also may help to enrich the lives of these students.

In 2006, USA Today ran an article about how the newest technologies were being

integrated into the classroom. One of the technologies listed was the iPod. With the

increasing popularity of the iPod, several language arts teachers have allowed students to

bring their music to class when studying poetry. Students are instructed to pick a song

with clean and appropriate lyrics and use the lyrics to show their understanding of poetry

devices like rhyme and alliteration (Ryman, 2006). Other schools have allowed iPods to

be used in the music department and those studying a foreign language. This sort of

program allows the school to tailor what files are on the iPods and the students are

finding more time to study away from the classroom when they would normally be idle –

like on the bus ride to and from school. College students are finding that their iPods are

helpful in recording lectures so that they are not only relying on pencil and paper for their

class notes (Parrott, 2007). Student teachers are also finding great ways to incorporate
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the iPod into their learning environments. University of South Florida student Allison

Papke introduced iPods into the special education classrooms of Pasco County. Before

the project, many of the students were removed from the classroom so that they could be

tested, as they needed the tests read to them. Using a feature of each iPod - notes, Papke

was able to develop an interactive experience that allowed students to listen to the test at

their own pace. The questions could be repeated as often as needed, they could pause to

answer, and because iPods have headphones, students didn’t need to be removed from the

classroom (University of South Florida, College of Education, 2007). This is barely the

tip of the iceberg as students become more interested in what else their iPods can do.

Podcasting, watching movies, and creating slide shows of images as flash cards are all

easy ways of integrating iPods into the classroom while inviting students to see

educational uses for their iPod.

While it seems easy to see the educational benefits of an iPod in the classroom,

could a cell phone be as useful? In Saskatchewan, there is a school using cell phones for

the distinct purpose of education. A middle school class used their cell phones while

studying the novel The Wave. They were able to share their thoughts about the book and

used voice recording and organizing to create group discussions and digital art projects

about the book were even shared using Bluetooth (Shareski, 2008). At Buhler High

School, several classes are using Gcast, a free web-based program that allows anyone to

create a webpage using a cell phone, an underused tool in the classroom. Students are

given a phone number associated with their Gcast site and an identification number.

Using their cell phones, they call in and create an audio file that is posted directly to the

new webpage. This is being utilized in foreign language classes to reduce the pressure of
 From Nuisance to Educational Technology 9

an audio quiz in front of the teacher. An English teacher used the website and cell phone

combination to post audio files of recorded interviews that had been through war when

the students were working on a unit of War in Literature. Buhler High is also using

polleverywhere.com. This allows student’s cell phones to take on the characteristics of a

classroom-response device. The website allows creation of a simple poll or questionnaire

and others can participate using cell phone texting (Trotter, 2009). Passage Middle

School, in Newport News, Virginia was recently in the local newspaper for using cell

phones effectively in the classroom. In a science classroom, the students use their phones

to answer questions projected onto the screen. The instructor then gives out a six-digit

number and says “Go.” The students then are able to answer the questions and their

answers show on the screen at the front of the room. Each answer is identifiable by the

student’s cell phone screen name. In less than an hour, it is easy to get through more than

70 questions as review, but appears more to look like a game show than a review session.

Students at Mary Passage are quoted as saying “This is more interesting and people pay

attention," she said. "It's fun. It beats writing stuff down and everybody likes to try to be

first” (Grimes, 2009). It is obvious that the students are not going to leave their phones at

home and rather than give them a reason to get in trouble, it is easier to use the

technology to expand their resources. Of course, acceptable use policies need to be

generated to protect the students, school, and teachers, but with effective monitoring,

students should be able to responsibly use their technology to help them learn.

Though many teachers have banned using laptop computers in their lectures and

classrooms, there is also much to be said about using the technology in the classroom.

Some schools are able to afford one laptop for every student, either through district funds,
 From Nuisance to Educational Technology 10

grants, or student’s parents. The use of them in the classroom becomes as unique as the

teacher and the class curriculum. At a middle school in Bloomfield, Connecticut, all of

the students and teachers have laptops. It would seem that the laptops created a sense of

excitement about learning. The technology integration specialist for the schools said that

having the laptops “created greater interest in research, writing, and projects students

work on. The laptops lead to a sense of discovery every day, keeping students more

focused and on task,” (Cromwell, 1999). Albany Law School Professor Alfred

Mathewson uses laptops in his classroom. While many of his colleagues are banning the

computers from class, he is trying to integrate them deeper into his. While note taking is

what many site as the reason for having them in the classroom, he believes there are other

uses. He has used them in his Civil Procedure class to allow his students to participate

with an online interactive casebook, which would allow them to better understand the

cases they would be studying (Lynch, 2008). At William Jewel College in Missouri, the

biology department uses laptops in their labs and lectures because they allow mobility in

the lab and department. Laptops are used to immediately allow students to apply the

material they have just learned, especially when working with statistical packages. The

students can run tests and the instructor can continue to assess, facilitate, and reinforce

the material for better comprehension. Other courses in the biology department use

laptops for simulations, spreadsheets, ADAM Human Anatomy software, and

presentations (Smith, Dilts, Gabrielson, Heruth, Rettig, & Strautman, 1999). As the cost

for laptop computers decrease and programs like $100 laptops or One Laptop per Child

increase, more students will be able to have access to this technology. They will no

longer be bound by the walls of their classroom and the resources will be endless.
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Of course, there will always be opposition to adding technology to the classroom,

especially technology that would be considered a nuisance to many educators and

instructors. However, if educators can engage our students and give them the skills to

succeed in a more and more virtual world, is that not more important than what mischief

students could get involved in? Many of the students have the tools in their hands and

backpacks, educators and administrators need to be creative in how they are used to

create more successful students.

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References

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