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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'

#151

Post by jagged-chisel »

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.

In my case it did. I took "advanced math" (trig, mostly) in high school from an abysmal teacher. Ignoring her and developing an intuition through graphing was the best thing ever. I had the best final grade in the class.

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

#152

Post by pavel_lishin »

isk517 wrote: post #131
bawolff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Back in the day the feature I liked most about my TI-82 was the amount of information that could fit on the display, the formatting options available, the ease of entering and editing what you entered, and the amount of past entered formulas that would be saved and how easy they were to retrieve. It made doing large blocks of basic BEDMAS math very quick and less suspectable to errors caused by accidentally hitting t…

> BEDMAS

I think I figured out what the B stands for, but where I'm from, we call it PEDMAS - the P standing for Parentheses.

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

#153

Post by pavel_lishin »

jeffgreco wrote: post #68
bawolff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Complete waste for anything math related for me. Did act as a proper gateway into coding though!

I distinctly remember writing a minesweeper game, using the built-in programming language. Not the fast compiled one you needed a cable to transfer! Just button presses.

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

#154

Post by heavygrit »

eloisant wrote: post #132
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…

> it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids That's such bullshit. - There is no emergency that require students to contact anyone. Communication can go through the school - Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school

> Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school

The tracker sends a notification when they're not at school, that's the point. Plus, I can lock down social media apps only during school hours. Blanket statements like this are plain ignorant. Also, I'm glad Utah finally passed a similar ban. Phones in use in class are a tremendous distraction 99% of the time.

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

#155

Post by tejohnso »

Not having distraction devices in a classroom is such a basic concept. I'm surprised it required government intervention. Every half decent school principal should've banned them in their school, and if the principal didn't, the individual teachers should have banned them from their classrooms. The first time a kid had to have a question repeated to them because they were looking at their phone should've been the last time phones were permitted in that class.

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

#156

Post by selectively »

starkparker wrote: post #72
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…

Don't get it twisted, almost every Portland-area school has gone full in on the stupid fucking Yondr pouches, and yeah it fucked up entry/exit: https://katu.com/news/local/portland-students-adapt-to-new-c... They also begged parents to help pay for them: https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/portland-schools-ask-... A friend's kid needs an exemption from their doctor because their phone is also their glucose monitor…

What a vulgar situation. Policy made from a moral panic and - look at that - it is negatively impacting actual people who exist.

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

#157

Post by nxobject »

bananamogul wrote: post #25

"decreed by executive order" That's the only bummer here. I do agree with this policy, but no one voted for it. The governor just said "you're going to do this". Yes, yes, I know - people elected the governor. But this sort of policy seems like something that should require legislative approval, not just one person deciding the whole state must do something. For every time something good comes of that kind of behavio…

This is a fun bureaucratic aside, but in Oregon the governor _is_ the statutory superintendent, rather than an elected official. (There are other oddities in Oregon: policy is otherwise extremely devolved, _and_ because property taxes are capped, funding goes through the legislature.)

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

#158

Post by kimbernator »

DANmode wrote: post #133
kimbernator wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Students can be trusted to obey a simple "no phones in class" rule. I'm honestly not educated on the topic right now since I haven't been in school for 15 years and have some time left before my daughter starts, but is this rule really not in place in most schools? How could any school justify not having this rule at the very least, regardless of how well-enforced it is? I always assumed it was a lack of enforcement…

It’s a lack of enforcement due to unruly, unparented children , in most regions’ school districts.

I tend to avoid placing the blame on individuals (parents in this case) when the problem being described is so widespread. People act as rationally as they can, so if it's that common, it's a systemic failure. Scolding the masses is a fool's errand.

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

#159

Post by jwcooper »

heavygrit wrote: post #154
eloisant wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it allows students to contact loved ones during emergencies, and many parents use phone trackers to keep tabs on their kids That's such bullshit. - There is no emergency that require students to contact anyone. Communication can go through the school - Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school

> Parents have no business tracking their kids when they're at school The tracker sends a notification when they're not at school, that's the point. Plus, I can lock down social media apps only during school hours. Blanket statements like this are plain ignorant. Also, I'm glad Utah finally passed a similar ban. Phones in use in class are a tremendous distraction 99% of the time.

This is ridiculous. The school will notify you if the student is not at school, or the teachers will eventually (or their grades/missing assignments).

Also you don't need to track your kids to enable school time mode, if you want to lock down their phone during school.

What are you going to do when they go to college? Track them? Monitor them? Make sure they go to classes?

At some point, you just have to trust your kids to do the right thing. It's a part of them learning how to grow up and be independent. It's better to make mistakes the younger you are so you can learn from them when there is less on the line.

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

#160

Post by bitmasher9 »

zdragnar wrote: post #150
fidotron wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? Browser games were half of what made flash popular back in the day before laptops were even a normal consumer device. You're spot on with classrooms not needing tech though. They add complications and distractions on top of an already difficult task.

Flash was founded in 1993, and while desktops were much more popular laptops were indeed a product sold to consumers
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