4 Ways Schools Are Using Smartphones to Teach

While some may say that smartphones create classroom distractions, many teachers have found that introducing smartphones and other mobile devices to their classes has helped their students learn. Having smartphones in classrooms is still a bit controversial, but legitimate reasons exist for allowing students to have smartphones in school. Discover four reasons why students and teachers can have access to mobile devices during the school day.

Play Games That Keep Students Engaged

Smartphone games can do much more than offer a few minutes of entertainment. Teachers who know about educational games can use these games to keep students engaged in their coursework. Many of the games are free and without cost to schools, parents, or students.

Some educational games that can keep students engaged include Duolingo, SkyView, and Monument Valley. Minecraft also has an educational edition that teaches students about art, poetry, history, and physics. Even the Minecraft Pocket Edition offers plenty of opportunities to teach students about engineering, planning, and cooperating with others.

Help Students Study With Flash Card Apps

Successful students have always used memory techniques to help them prepare for tests. Flashcards, for example, improve retention by getting students to use active recall, confidence-based repetition, and their metacognitive faculties.

You don’t have to make flashcards by hand for them to work. Using a smartphone app, such as Cram.com flash cards, works as well. In fact, studying flashcards on your smartphone may work better than using note cards. Considering that most people always have their phones with them, students can study when they have a few moments of downtime.

Share Feedback With Students and Parents

Having smartphones in the classroom also empowers teachers to give feedback to their students. Apps such as ClassDojo give teachers a secure way to tell students how they are excelling and where they need to improve. Teachers can also use the app to send reports, photographs, and videos to parents.

Of course, with such a sophisticated app, teachers, parents, and students will need reliable smartphones. For example, a model such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge smartphone features a 5 1/2-inch display, long battery life, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor.

When teachers have the power to send articles and feedback to parents and students, they can connect the classroom and home experiences to make learning easier. Many parents also like getting video and progress reports during the day because these communications help them feel more involved with their children’s lives. When moms and dads ask their kids about school, they don’t have to accept “nothing” as an answer. Instead, parents can play videos and ask about what their children were learning during specific moments of the day.

Give Students Access to Online Research Materials

Having smartphones in the classroom enables students to access online articles and other types of research that they can’t find in books. Many public and university libraries have large online catalogs where students can download everything from news articles to scholarly publications.

Teachers can also have their students use smartphones to find online tutorials. For example, a group of students interested in learning how to write computer code could sign up for supplementary instruction from an online school such as Codecademy or Treehouse. Students struggling in music classes can get extra help from online courses and websites that focus on subjects that cover music theory and note identification.

No matter what subjects students want to learn, teachers can find online resources that will help their students succeed. Introducing smartphones to classrooms enables teachers to easily research their options and share ideas with their students.

While some people will always object to having smartphones in classrooms, the idea isn’t one to dismiss completely. As long as teachers know how to use the technology correctly, however, introducing smartphones in the classrooms can help students succeed. Experts still need to do more research to learn the best ways for technology to improve classroom instruction, but teachers already have plenty of resources that they can use.