Why put cells in a cell?

So we have this rule at the school where I teach that we're not allowed to use our cellular devices. Students can't have them out even before or after school. And teachers can't access them in the presence of the pupils. As the shift to 21st century skills slowly takes hold (it's about a decade late, if you ask me), the question must arise, are rules like the one at our school still valid? I understand that the premise behind the edict intends good. It's about security. I get that. But at the same time, aren't we supposed to teach our kids about how to function in the real world? And the real world has cell phones, a bevy of them.

Lately I've been a bad girl. I've ignored the rules (*GULP*). Thankfully, my kids know that I use my phone for good, not evil, and I think they're okay with that. After all, how am I supposed to read through my email and record all those meetings, webinar dates, and checkpoints if I can't use my phone (which, by the way, one of my friends calls my iLife)? And since I depend on it so heavily when I'm shopping or traveling or reading, doesn't it make sense that I would also need it in my classroom just as desperately? (And yes, I would call it desperate - I really wouldn't know how to function if I couldn't view the forecast, check in, update my status, review the news, and complete far too many sudoku games at the touch of a button.) I've grown used to it so much that when I problem solve, one of my first considerations is whether or not I have "an app for that."

Earlier this week my classroom was going through a mid-life crisis. Monday it was freezing; Tuesday it was toasty. And since my kids couldn't wear their coats (another one of those questionable rules of security), I opted to trek down the hall to another classroom that wasn't quite as frigid, but before I did I whipped out my cell (shhhhhhhhh) and snapped a shot of my whiteboard, where I always write the daily agenda. And so when I arrived in the unfamiliar territory of a computer lab I haven't seen in over a year (yeah for one-to-one computing), I was ready to move forward with my lessons as planned.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg (and thankfully my room is a few degrees warmer than that now). In the same week that I so grossly used my iPhone to adapt to my surroundings, a student came to me with quite the quandry. As required, he had found a graphic that he wanted to use in his research paper, but unfortunatley he didn't know how to get it from the printed article to his virtual essay. Traditionally (or perhaps not so traditionally) you might access a scanner and then insert the image into your document. But that would require a scanner, of course. So my wheels, they were a'turning. "I know, I'll Google it!" I exclaimed. Followed by a quick, "Just don't tell anyone I'm using my phone," with a wink. And out it came - hot pink cover and all. With another snap of the camera, I searched via the Google image search, which actually browses online for an image, emblem, brand name, or whatever it is that you can see but aren't sure what it is (I've actually tried this for a rash, and believe or not, it worked!). Ten seconds later I had a URL for my now happy student.

I actually gush sometimes when people ask me about my phone. Serving as an extention of me, it facilitates my life in ways that nothing before has even come close to doing. Is that really all that wrong? If it helps, if it expedites, if it directs, if it enables, shouldn't we at least consider it as a classroom tool?