Teach Texas

Phones may replace school books

By Tori Brock Staff Reporter

HUNTSVILLE — Instead of being banned and confiscated, students may find their cell phones replacing books soon.

Huntsville Independent School District Board of Trustees members heard an update Thursday on the district’s BYOD initiative. Bring Your Own Devices would have students using cell phones as instructional tools during classroom time, as well as using them to access the Internet while at home.

Tracy Simental, HISD director of technology, was in Austin Thursday and used her own brand of tech-savvy instruction to Skype in to the board meeting while giving the BYOD presentation. Simental said the district is working closely with AT&T to ensure that students have access to affordable smart phones and data plans. For those students who don’t have home Internet access, there’s even a “puck” device that students can check-out from the school to access the Internet from home.

From now through August, HISD will be coordinating with parents of students in the 6th through 11th grades who will be in 7th through 12th next year about the program and its pros and cons.

Interesting article on how the school I am observing at is embracing the use of cell phones as a learning tool rather then banning them.

This week was my first week observing a 9th grade Pre AP World Geography class at the local high school. Let me point out that I am not an education major and I am being certified through an alternative certification program. Basically this was my first experience in the class room.

I actually found that observing was helpful in piecing together the different classroom management techniques I have been studying for the past few months. My cooperating teacher had various tricks up her sleeve in order to maintain order in her classroom.

I think the part that surprised me the most was the amount of technology integrated into her lesson plans. It is not that she did anything extraordinary, I just wasn’t expecting for a small town like Huntsville, TX to have such resources. There are Promethean Boards in every class room, so most of the lesson is not on any sort of black board/ dry erase board. This allowed the teacher to move from power point to censored YouTube videos rather smoothly.

I realize that not every school has such resources but it was interesting to see the integration of technology.