Smartphone overload

Students in Belknap County public schools increasingly use their cell phones and smartphones as part of classroom learning, educators report. (Photo illustration by David Carkhuff)

Local schools allow students to use mobile devices but bandwidth is stressed

By DAVID CARKHUFF, LACONIA DAILY SUN

BELMONT — Where students once passed notes in class, now they text each other on their phones.

But what happens when the ubiquitous smartphone becomes so ingrained in school life that a district can't handle the Internet load?

Shaker Regional School District is grappling with that problem.

"Every time I turn around we're using more bandwidth," said Jason Hills, director of information technology in the Shaker Regional School District, during a March 28 School Board meeting. Bandwidth is the term for Internet capacity. "Streaming" or a live data transfer, particularly with video, tends to suck up more processing capacity.

"We went from maybe a class of 20 streaming YouTube videos, for instance, to two or three classes doing that," Hills said. "So that's where our bandwidth gets sucked up. We use a Discovery textbook at the middle school. Great program, but we can crash the Internet with three or four classes going into that at one time."

In Canterbury, 30 students tried to "cast," or send video, to a computer and locked up the Internet service, Hills said.

"You have that many kids pushing and sending data," he said.

School trustee Sean Embree asked if the school district could control bandwidth use by authorizing a presenter to show an online video on a screen, for example, rather than each student in a class accessing their individual devices to watch the same video.

Hills said limiting the use of personal devices could help ease the load.

"As a one-to-one district, do we really need them to be checking their iPhones and their tablets and then the district-owned device at the same time?" he asked, explaining the dilemma.

The issue of smartphones in schools dates back to the dawn of this technology.

"Cell phones, iPads, digital gaming and other technology is being integrated into the day-to-day learning experience of many students in schools across the nation," explained National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland, Ohio-based national school safety consulting firm.

"The methods in which (students) communicate (email, texting, instant messaging, etc.) and the tools to do so are readily available in so many forms. Having technology in schools as instructional tools, and believing one can simultaneously eliminate the ability of students to communicate electronically with each other and the outside community, appears to be increasingly unrealistic thinking."

In other words, game over for opponents of allowing cell phones and smartphones in schools.

Beginning in March 2015, New York City, the largest school district in the country with 1.1 million students, reversed a longstanding ban on cell phones in schools, a sign of the times, the National Education Association reported.

The fight to keep cell phones and other mobile devices out of classrooms has largely fallen by the wayside in Belknap County, where school districts, including Shaker Regional, permit the devices and even harness them for educational purposes.

"When kids walk down the hallway, they all have their phones out," said David Williams, principal at Belmont High School.

"You can't fight it. That's the whole thing, I don't want there to be this disconnect," Williams said.

In the Shaker Regional School District, a state-mandated "acceptable use policy" explains that "students may use the student wireless network when they are not in class. Students may not use the student wireless network in class unless authorized by the teacher of that class. Incidental personal use of the network is acceptable, but students should not use the network for personal activities that consume significant network bandwidth or for activities that violate school policy or local law."

The school district does not provide information technology support for student-owned devices, the policy adds. "Students are prohibited from bullying and cyberbullying actions or communications directed toward other students," the policy reads.

Anthony Sperazzo, principal at Gilford High School, said the student council four or five years ago made a request to allow the use of mobile devices, and a compromise was reached.

"Our students are allowed to use cell phones during transitions, so when the bell is ringing between classes, lunches. They're not allowed to be used in classrooms unless the teachers say it's fine," Sperazzo said.

Many teachers will ask students who have smartphones and other devices to log on and take an online assessment or progress update to show how well they understand the class work, he said.

"It really is a powerful tool. Instead of trying to block the students from using this tool that they love, why not engage and have this device involved in their learning?" he said.

Brendan Minnihan, superintendent of schools in Laconia, said mobile device policy for students in Laconia occurs at a school and classroom level.

"The middle school says you can have your phone out during this time and that time, and it spells out when you can," he said.

Minnihan said he was in a Laconia High School class recently talking to students, and the students who entered the classroom placed their phones in a set of pockets on the wall and retrieved those phones when they left.

"Eight or nine years ago when I started in the administrative realm there was a push to try to keep cell phones out of schools, but they've become such a part of the school day — pretty much all kids, especially middle and high school, have them — that I think (officials) more try to regulate when they're being used. Some teachers use them for academic purposes," Minnihan said.

One such academic use, polling software, allows students to access a polling site from their smartphone and answer questions about classroom material, he said.

"I think over time they've been used more educationally," Minnihan said.

In Laconia, Minnihan said he isn't aware of any problems with bandwidth related to use of the Internet by students. Internal mechanical issues caused a recent glitch, but it did not stem from student use, he said.

Hills in the Shaker Regional School District said he has a plan to expand bandwidth there, where the district operates under a goal of one computer per each student.

"My goal is it won't cost us more than we're spending now. That's my goal," Hills said, pointing to the possibility of a new contract with an Internet provider.

Meanwhile, Williams said the policy allowing access to the Internet during school hours doesn't mean it's a free-for-all.

"They don't have free access. They still have to go through our server and our filters so any kind of inappropriate content would be blocked," he said.

"At this point, now, it's so difficult to escape. I don't know of any students who don't have their own (phones)," Williams said. "It really is a different age."

But students seem to recognize limits and rules.

In his first year as principal at Belmont High, Williams said, "I've never seen a kid's phone ring or go off, not once."

Likewise, students seem dutiful in their use of mobile devices as part of a classroom experience, Williams said.

"I was just in a classroom today where the teacher asked the kids to take out their phones," so they could log on to a learning management platform, he said.

"We believe the more appropriate way of handling this is, rather than banning the technology, teaching the appropriate use of the technology," Williams said.

The caveat is that some teachers will struggle with students using cell phones inappropriately in class, and so flexibility is key so that those teachers have the authority to ban mobile devices.

Each teacher maintains classroom rules about cell phones, Williams said.

There are some classrooms where the teacher has a rule: no cell phones.

In other classes, teachers don't seem to mind the personal technology.

"I think mostly the kids use the phones in class as adults would," by updating calendars, keeping notes and reminders and sometimes researching information, Williams said.

"I think it can be a positive," he said.

But for educators over the age of 40, adaptation to this new era can be daunting.

"It's more a recognition that's what kids do," Minnihan said. "It used to be at lunch, or before school or after school, they would play on the playground or talk to each other, who knows? Now it's just different. We've adapted."