Are you ready to incorporate student cell phones into the classroom?

I think the answer for the vast majority of us would have to be a resounding, "hell no!"

However, David Socol, Michigan State University College of Education's special education technology scholar, scoffs at the idea of continuing to use clicker technology in classrooms, especially when most -- if not all -- students already have a device capable of doing what clickers do, and so much more:

"Everything a clicker can do, can, of course, simply be done by embracing the mobile phone and text message capabilities almost all students carry with them. This kind of sophisticated classroom interaction via the mobile phone is in use in many nations. ..."
And, Socol added, the cell phone technology can do so much more, "allowing things other than guessed multiple choice answers to be transmitted. Short answers, even
mini-essays, math solutions, all easily flow through text messaging."

Where on earth, you might ask, have teachers actually done this successfully? Saskatchewan, of course! The Star Phoenix reports that a Saskatchewan high school principal and teacher have implemented a pilot project using students' cell phones:

"These are tools and there's no use burying our heads in the sand and not taking advantage of them," said Taylor. "We're preparing these kids for the world and people in business are carrying cells as tools for communication."

The idea began with a group of frustrated teachers on a Friday in early January. They were discussing how cellphones were disturbing class, which sparked the idea of using the cells as classroom aids. Taylor then approached Dolman to get the idea rolling.

From that point, the students were involved in the program development, said Dolman. "Some of the kids were saying, 'Are you sure you want to do this Mrs. Dolman? Isn't this just going to be one other thing you'll have to control with us?' " she said. "But I'm happy to report, I've only had positive results."

The class has used the phones as part of a recent book study, which involved students sending responses to their teacher's questions in video and audio formats.

Students have also started using the calendar and alarm features as agenda alternatives, which Dolman said has increased productivity drastically. Taylor said there have been mixed reviews from other teachers and parents. Critics say it may just represent another distraction in class, a further breakdown of proper English or a tech-dependency nightmare.

"I think the way people learn has changed since a generation ago," said Taylor. "People were saying similar things about calculators when I got out of university."

And lest you think that this is an idea that only a Canadian could love, American professors report using the cell phones, particularly in conjunction with Twitter:

David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, says he was reluctant to try the technology. Mr. Parry's first instinct was that Twittering would encourage students to speak in sound bites and self-obsess. But now he calls it "the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I've ever done teaching."

Last semester he required the 20 students in his "Introduction to Computer-Mediated Communication" course to sign up for Twitter and to send a few messages each week as part of a writing assignment. He also invited his students to follow his own Twitter feed, in which he sometimes writes several short thoughts — not necessarily profound ones — each day. One morning, for instance, he sent out a message that read: "Reading, prepping for grad class, putting off running until it warms up a bit." The week before, one of his messages included a link to a Web site he wanted his students to check out.

The posts from students also mixed the mundane with the useful. One student Twittered that she just bought a pet rabbit. Another noted that a topic from the class was being discussed on a TV-news report.

The immediacy of the messages helped the students feel more like a community, Mr. Parry says. "It really broke down that barrier between inside the classroom walls and outside the classroom walls."

Twitter limits messages to 140 characters. Writing professors at the college level have even used it for in-class writing exercises as a way to force students to write concisely.

Parry's statement that using Twitter has "really broke down that barrier between inside the classroom walls and outside the classroom walls" raises a question, though:

Is that something we want? I don't want to be on call 24/7 anymore than my students want to have to think about my class 24/7. Twitter, in particular, raises a question about discretion. Shouldn't there have to be some lag time between the moment I think something and the moment I send it out to 40 people? Professors have already noticed a lack of filtering between what Xers and Millennials think and what they say; I would hate for that to get continuously worse. However, if they are going to lose their filter entirely, I like that what they say is going to be restricted to 140 characters.