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‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
(www.theguardian.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Like it or not, smartphones and the internet are now a part of everyday life. Digital literacy is now as important as traditional literacy. Pretending that this shift has not happened, because education systems cannot adapt to it, is absurd.
The problems that are claimed to be caused by smartphones in class seem to be more down to to a lack of discipline and engagement. I went to school before any kind of mobile phone was a thing. There were still plenty of potential ways for students to goof off, yet teachers by and large managed to keep us focused and behaving.
Smartphones are orders of magnitude more distracting than whatever existed before. Also, you can teach digital literacy all the while forbidding smartphone use outside of class, there is no real opposition there.