Use of electronic devices in the secondary classroom

Many schools currently have a policy prohibiting the use, and sometimes even the possession, of electronic devices on high school campus. Research shows that some students actually learn better and concentrate better when they listen to music. Cell phones are no just toys but are tools as they are equipped with many functions that are useful in today's modern classroom. What are some of those uses and site the souce where you ontained the information.

PLEs in the high school learning environment

I was introduced to PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) in one of my college classes. Since one of the ways I learn best is by playing with things I figured if I taught my students to develop a PLE of their own we could discover more benefits together. So far I'm pleased with the results. The PLE above belongs to one of my 6th hour students and this tab is for my Earth Science class.  They have a tab for each class and have rss feeds coming to most pages concerning the current events in each content area.

My students are just now starting to respond to blog posts and their responses vary from well thought out to not so.  In polling them on whether or not they would rather contribute in a class discussion in person or online the overwhelming majority said they would rather discuss online. When asked why, the responses varied from: "I don't like to talk in front of people" to "I think people pay more attention and take you more seriously online".  I had a couple of students tell me that when they responded to the blogs they felt smart.

If this technology advance continues we will have to figure out how to catch up and then keep pace with the daily advances.

HELP!!!

Okay folks, I understand I am a "digital immigrant" so I could use some help getting all this stuff to work correctly. Heck, I'm not sure it works at all.

It's getting late, I'm tired and this techy stuff, although cool, has about worn out its welcome for today. The dogs are barking and hopefully the bear isn't back