I was amused by what I saw at a locker when I was walking down the middle school wing of my school the other day. A cord from an Android smart phone was leading from the locker to the adjacent electrical outlet on the wall. What a lucky kid, they had scored the best locker assignment ever if you measure lucky in connectivity. The plugged in phone had me immediately thinking of how I try to score a seat near a plug whenever I have to wait at an airport gate for a flight. I asked a few teachers what they thought was a good locker assignment and got answers reminiscent of my middle school (they called it junior high) years: a locker on top, a locker near your classes, a locker near your friends. How good is your locker if your phone dies in the middle of the day?
The phone plugged into the wall near a locker really isn’t that surprising. It’s more surprising how we have not taken stock of how connected our students really are. I know many of our middle school students have iPod touches and some have smart phones, but we have not thought about the learning potential of these devices. I know we at lest have one student who would always have his or her phone charged up if the learning occasion arose!
Advertisement
