Dealing with Social Media in the Classroom

When cell phones first appeared in the classroom, students could do little more than look at them. It took more than guts to make an actual phone call during class and since that’s all cell phones could do at the time—make or receive phone calls—the problems that existed took place mostly during breaks and lunch. With the advent of texting, cell phones in the classroom became more of a problem. As a high school teacher in the early 2000’s, I dealt with more than my share of texting teens complaining about class via cell phones to a friend in another room. They employed every tactic imaginable to text without being caught: cell phone in the lap, cell phone hidden behind a textbook, cell phone concealed in a note book or inside a backpack pocket. The disruptions grew as students spent more time trying to surreptitiously text than to learn.