Pupils to use cellphones as learning tool | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

Otumoetai Intermediate School will pioneer a first in New Zealand education by allowing students to use cellphones as part of everyday learning.

Students will be able to use phones to assist with projects, with the added ability to speak up if they see other students behaving inappropriately in the playground.

From next week, Otumoetai Intermediate students can use their phones to video and record interviews on field trips, and then download the information through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi on to their school file, and manipulate the data into a high level report.

Otumoetai Intermediate principal Henk Popping said as far as he was aware, there was no other school in the country doing anything similar.

While some schools did allow children to bring phones to school, none used them as a learning tool.

Mr Popping said the decision was controversial but aimed to bring students in line with 21st- century learning and "the real world."

A hotline will be set up to allow students to text concerns and notify key staff if students are being bullied or were in need of pastoral care.

Mr Popping said this would allow "600 eyes in the playground" in addition to the school's 12 closed-circuit cameras.

Mr Popping said looking to the future, the school had two options.

"Do we hold the school back? Or are we innovative and look at new ways of learning?

"At home they (students) text their friends and have a Facebook or Bebo profile. Then they come to school and are told to switch all that stuff off.

"We still teach them in a traditional sense; one teacher managing a group of students. It's archaic, and a 19th-century learning model. They go back home and switch back on to the 'real world."'

Mr Popping said the school would be looking into how it could utilise all social media, including social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

A trial of a new piece of software with Tauranga Girls' College and Otumoetai College will also see parents and students register their mobile phone numbers and email addresses under "school links," which allows schools to send out bulk messages.

A recent survey at the school showed 600 of Otumoetai Intermediate's 821 students had cellphones, and a quarter of those phones were 3G capable.

Seventy per cent of parents, teachers and students supported having cellphones at school.

"We are better off fundraising for other equipment needed in the school rather than digital cameras and video recorders when at least 75 per cent of students have this technology themselves," Mr Popping said.

"Cellphones can be a powerful assistive technology for learning when used in the appropriate context."

Students will only be able to bring their phones to school once they agree to follow strict protocols.

If cellphones are used inappropriately, students lose their trusted status and have their phone confiscated and/or lose the privilege of having it at school.

Mr Popping said having a phone at school was not a requirement and knew not all parents would buy into it.

 "We pay for it, so if we're on [our cellphone] at school, we have to remember it's 'bills'," 12-year-old Kelcy Ballantyne said.

Six students the Bay of Plenty Times spoke to not only had cellphones, but four had a profile on one or more social networking sites, all had iPods, and most had digital cameras.

"We're planning for the future," Kelcy said.

"In 10 years' time the technology will be different again. It's changing all the time."