Courses On Classroom Cell Phone Use Questioned

The New York Sun

In spite of Mayor Bloomberg's cell phone ban, the Department of Education's Office of Instructional Technology is offering teachers classes on how to use Google on cell phones as part of their lessons to locate definitions, get currency exchange rates, and geography.

Lisa Nielsen, who recently criticized the DOE's restrictions on employees' blog use, is the course's creator.  She said she is not trying to encourage teachers and principals to flout Bloomberg's cell phone ban and that cell phones can be used productively in the classroom.

An educational consultant, Will Richardson, is also against the ban.  When using his cell phone at a Manhattan high school to demonstrate how they can be used as research tools, the students had to rely on his since the students' phones were at a local bodega which charges $3 a day to store them.

> Educator Protests Dept. of Ed Blog Restrictions