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Mobile Phones can Be Used to Teach Children, Says Teacher

by Karthika on Jan 3 2008 6:29 PM

Giving mobile phones to kids may not be as bad as we thought as a primary school teacher is proposing to use cell phones to help children learn.

Sharon Tonner believes that mobile phones can prove to be a powerful educational tool.

However, her ideas are not welcomed by fellow teachers, who fear that kids may use mobiles to make playground attack videos or to post illicit pictures of staff on the Internet.

While in many schools, switching on mobiles or even bringing them has been banned completely, Tonner, at Dundee High junior school, is refuting this anti-mobile culture.

Tonner, being the school's first ICT specialist, teaches primary pupils to use Bluetooth, camera, video and voice recorder functions.

She even said that other teachers should benefit from the technology to make the students learn.

"They can use the voice recorders for French, for example. Normally when children have to learn words when they get home they can't remember how to say them. But the teacher could Bluetooth recordings of how to pronounce words. They would be able to look at the words and hear them at the same time so they should learn them more quickly,” the Scotsman quoted her, as saying.

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"Another use is in music. They get home and have the words in front of them but can't remember how the music goes. It only takes two minutes to Bluetooth a whole class and you can guarantee they'd have it in their ears and listen to it more than they'd read it,” she added.

Tonner admitted to the fact that other teachers considered it taboo to use mobile phones in school at all.

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"They still do see mobile phones negatively. I think people see computers as very negative because of cyber-bullying but teachers have to embrace what the children are using,” said Tonner.

"We have seen how they could be used negatively but we have to learn how to control that. Five years ago when they put computers in classrooms many teachers wouldn't touch them. Within ten years we will be using mobile phones and hand-held computers to help pupils with their school work,” she added.

Source-ANI
KAR/M


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