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Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

portlandtribune.com

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Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#111

Post by Aurornis »

mattbaker wrote: post #97

It’s the right idea but it also puts the burden of enforcement on teachers that are already over extended, especially in schools where behavioral challenges are more prevalent. Great in a scenario where students are compliant, and a nightmare in environments where they’re not. I don’t have a solution to that problem, but I also think it’s important to acknowledge it’s not all sunshine and roses. I’m saying this as a…

> It’s the right idea but it also puts the burden of enforcement on teachers

As opposed to what? Enforcing rules of the classroom is part of the teacher's job.

I don't understand this objection. What's the alternative? Just let the classroom be a free for all because we don't want to burden teachers enforcing rules? Put a separate security officer in the classroom?

Enforcement becomes easier, not harder, when the rules are uniformly applied everywhere and without exception. There's no gray area and less temptation to bring the phone out because they know they'll lose it wherever they use it, even if it's in the hallways.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#112

Post by estimator7292 »

Auracle wrote: post #49
technothrasher wrote: post #23

My son, who recently graduated high school, went to a school that banned phones but insisted on laptops (providing them for the kids who couldn't afford one). He said it was ridiculous, as none of the kids had any problem using their laptop for anything they would have used the phone, which was mostly texting, scrolling social media, watching videos, and playing games. Even when the school tried to lock down services…

Way back when I was in school (2004 or so) I set up a proxy on my personal website to get around them blocking email, because I don’t want to have to save things to a damned floppy drive. I then let a teacher use it because he was frustrated half of his search results would get blocked. From there, it spread like wildfire. Eventually they blocked it and from then on the IT guy would give me a side eye whenever we cro…

Yeah, back when I was in school it was a cat and mouse game of finding a new proxy every week when the last one got blocked. The minute someone found a new one, it was everywhere.

I decided to sidestep the whole game and run my own proxy at home. I didn't have enough bandwidth for multiple users, so it was just me. I don't think IT ever caught on.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#113

Post by rootusrootus »

dizzy9 wrote: post #43

> In crafting its policy, Estacada incorporated feedback from parents. That led to some key decisions around the cell phone ban. Rather than use pouches or lockers, students are allowed to keep their phones safely stored in their backpacks. That was for two reasons — it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids. I'm glad to hear this. They…

This is how it works in my kids' school. Not Estacada, but not that far away, and not in Portland. No pouches or lockers, just an understanding that phones which are seen will be confiscated. First time they get sent to the office and returned as the student leaves school. Second time they have to be picked up by a parent.

You'd think it would be a huge deal with rebellious teens, but my daughter says it has basically been a non-issue.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#114

Post by fennecfoxy »

dizzy9 wrote: post #43

> In crafting its policy, Estacada incorporated feedback from parents. That led to some key decisions around the cell phone ban. Rather than use pouches or lockers, students are allowed to keep their phones safely stored in their backpacks. That was for two reasons — it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids. I'm glad to hear this. They…

>Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule.

And what if they don't? En masse?

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#115

Post by mrinterweb »

jmward01 wrote: post #77

I think this is likely a good concept for schools, but I want to see the data and not opinions. Lack of evidence based policy is what got us here, we should at some point start using evidence based policy to get us out of it.

There are many sources for data on before and after school cell phone bans. Oregon is far from the first to implement this. 35 US states have some form of school cell phone ban, and I believe the UK is doing a nation-wide ban. There is a good amount of supporting data measuring results on this topic.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#116

Post by InitialLastName »

shimman wrote: post #33
bananamogul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2026 the number of people with mp3 players that are not also smart phones is vanishingly small.

If you are interested in standalone digital audio players (DAPs), I just recently bought this: https://www.fiio.com/echomini For ~$60 you get a device that can play every type of audio file and has better sound quality than your cellphone + streamer combo. I've been reading more about Chinese hardware and if you've been sleeping on it there are a lot of great Chinese consumer products that are both extremely high qua…

Note that in this case, you are getting what you pay for: I had a FIIO DAC that sounded amazing but was really bad about full-scale turn-on, sync and desync pops to the extent that it damaged my speakers. Yes, perfect power sequence hygiene would have prevented the problem, but one can't always be ready with the amplifier volume knob when their playback system crashes.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#117

Post by porridgeraisin »

rootusrootus wrote: post #29
bawolff wrote: post #21

I'm a little confussd... was there a point they were allowed? I went to school in the late 2000s, and even at that point if a teacher saw you with a cell phone it was immediately confiscated.

Late 2000s was just after smartphones became a thing, and before they became a crack epidemic. In my personal experience, it has really been bad for about the last 10 years, getting better over the last few years however. Took a few years for everyone to really understand how bad the problem had become and how quickly.

Here in india it became normalised to bring it to school around 2016. But even today it's completely not OK to use it in class. It'll be confiscated immediately.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#118

Post by Aurornis »

dizzy9 wrote: post #43

> In crafting its policy, Estacada incorporated feedback from parents. That led to some key decisions around the cell phone ban. Rather than use pouches or lockers, students are allowed to keep their phones safely stored in their backpacks. That was for two reasons — it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids. I'm glad to hear this. They…

> Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule

That was the general policy before these bans. It was not working.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#119

Post by johnnyanmac »

fidotron wrote: post #50
technothrasher wrote: post #23

My son, who recently graduated high school, went to a school that banned phones but insisted on laptops (providing them for the kids who couldn't afford one). He said it was ridiculous, as none of the kids had any problem using their laptop for anything they would have used the phone, which was mostly texting, scrolling social media, watching videos, and playing games. Even when the school tried to lock down services…

The whole "browser game" industry is built on this phenomenon. It's about getting kids on school laptops mindlessly looping on something while shoving ads in their face. Honestly, get the tech out of classrooms. A few 8 bit machines that can run LOGO are far more genuinely educational than all the gunk they have today.

Gotta get schools back to using paper homework. There's so many of those awful online classroom portals for homework. Absolutely trash software, technically speaking.

Re: Oregon school cell phone ban: 'Engaged students, joyful teachers'

#120

Post by veilrap »

bawolff wrote: post #27
galleywest200 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely an electronic wrist watch is fine, and maybe an mp3 player. Also graphing calculators.

Do graphing calculators actually help people learn? We used them in high school, but when i needed to take calculus in university we didn't use them. I'm doubtful they are good for learning especially when trying to teach the foundations.

Personally, playing with the graphing and algebra functions on the calculator were hugely informative. Rapidly trying out different things, seeing how they looked how tweaking things would cause adjustment, all added educational value.

I feel like graphing calculators enable exploration in a way that doing it manually with pen and paper cannot. Obviously, pen and paper is super valuable as well, but I feel that they are complimentary.

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