Lessons taught by my Mobile students: my FIVE items list of "Do and Do Nots"...

BDS Library brings wings to the mind

There´s this old saying... we learn from our mistakes, and I´m no exception to the rule. I´ve gone over this past year of sharing the stage with mobile devices in our classrooms in my head and spotted some interesting conclusions to share. 

I´ve made some mistakes, probably out of sheer courage of plunging in, for no matter how much you read about it, nothing makes the school community ready enough for the real thing when you encourage a device friendly atmosphere in school. 

I must admit I get thrilled by the power of mobile devices in the hands of young learners, so I´m clearing out with myself what went wrong to become a better facilitator of knowledge in months to come. That´s what summer recess is for, reflecting, relaxing, reloading...

Anyway, here goes my list of FIVE (yes, just FIVE) things I´ve learnt so far about using mobile devices in Primary school.


ONE – Digital Literacy is not a gene.

Students do not need to be be taught how to use their devices, but rather how to get the most out of it for learning and creating by themselves. And most importantly, they need to be shown how to share their learning and connect it with the real word, and to promote deeper thinking.

Teacher training needs to be driven into this direction. Visible thinking techniques combined with media literacy, for instance, are paramount if we really want to make the most of these devices. 

TWO – a BYOD policy is not the end of trouble in the cloud.

Let´s face it,  Blogs, Twitter, Instagram all of these are already in our students´ backpack, so we´d better bring them to the surface to help them deal with their digital fingerprints. 

A BYOD school policy is beyond writing it, it means dealing every single day with new cases in which you need to identify if overruling should be considered. Mobile devices allow teachers and students to take REAL action in the REAL world, but they need help to walk through it within a set of rules for digital citizenshiph.

THREE –About ebooks: there´s no silver bullet.

The tablet alone will not make students love reading. We still need good titles to stir up the interest of a young reader, good apps that are up to their expectations. They won´t buy it just because it´s tinned in a 10" touchscreen.

FOUR – The tablet is what it is.

Let´s not overdo it. When it comes to word-processing, data handling or graphic editing – let students use a computer please! It is incredibly difficult to format pages on the iPad, edit long videos, or manage large amounts of data in any table or idevice. And the continual auto spell check can be very frustrating, indeed! 

Focusing on tablets-versus.-laptop comparisons stifles the ability to see how tablets facilitate student-centered learning.

FIVE – Beware of not taking advantage of the mobility of the device.

Mobility means that students can move about taking photographs, recording audio, and shooting video, in any number of places. Active creativity and personalized learning are some of the main assets of any tablet. So if you´re afraid of watching your students walking around with their devices in their palms, you´re refraining real transformation. Remember WiFi coverage in campus is essential.

One final thought

Sharing mobile devices between classes, is not the best scenario. Budget constrains drives you to thinking we can share mobile devices. The truth is that mobile devices were designed as a single-user device and are not meant to be shared. Don´t abandon 1:1 aspirations for lack of finances, rather move on to BYOD programmes, for sharing devices defeats the purpose. 

Try to make your own set of recommendations, it clears up the mind to keep on going.