Electronics in the School Room

Study hall has been much quieter at Manchester's Memorial High School nowadays, at least according to principal Arthur Adamakos.

Instead of chatting, some students are listening to their ipods and MP3 players.

Years ago, the devices were not allowed anywhere, anytime.

Adamakos: After one Christmas, we had seen a proliferation, of MP3 players and the use of the MP3 players. And we sat back and we said look, we can't spend our entire day disciplining students for operating MP3 players.

So the school came up with a limited-use policy.

And Adamakos says the students have been pretty good about it.

MP3 players, of course, are only one of the many digital devices students are likely to carry.

And not all schools are as lenient as Memorial High.

Theodore Comstock is the Executive Director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association.

Comstock: School officials are grappling with the appropriate procedures and how to balance out students rights and needs for discipline and needs for order in the school.

Lori Collins is director of the Greater Manchester Center for Professional Development.

The Center-- one of six statewide-- helps educate teachers on various issues including using technology in the classroom.

Collins says the MP3 player compromise at Memorial is a good one.

Collins: We're talking about doing things like twittering with the teachers and even encouraging them, and I hate to even say this, because it can be interpreted, but using Facebook as a learning tool. I mean they're on it all the time. Right?

As for cellphones, she says they can be turned into a learning tool.

Collins: You've got a question up there and you say, All right take out your cell phone text to blah blah if you agree with this statement, you know, and so you could actually use it as an assessment tool.

At Memorial, cell phones are allowed only outside the school building -- during lunch.

Somersworth High School at one time did not allow any of these devices on the school grounds.

But the school adopted a new policy last fall.

Hilliard: Throughout the course of the school day, they're not allowed to be physically seen and they're not allowed to be used.

That's Dana Hilliard, the assistant principal.

At the conclusion of day, the cell phones come out in masses and so do the iPods and MP3 players.

William Carozza, runs Hopkinton Elementary School and has his own principal's blog.

He sees these new devices as tools.

Carozza: ….. For instance, I know our district right now does block Facebook for instance, but I think as years go on the way we're all going to be communicating is through some of these social technology devices like Twitter, like Facebook, like Myspace,

13 year old Tyler Bachert goes to the Henry J. McLaughlin Middle School in Manchester.

He and his friends have cell phones and ipods.

He says he understands the reasons for the rules.

But he'd like a bit more freedom -- to listen to his iPod after finishing a test, for instance.

Tyler: If you're doing research, electronics make it so much easier and more fun than just sitting in there with a boring old book

His mother Tracy Bachert got her first laptop last month.

She’s learning all things technical from her teen-agers.

Tracey: I think that a lot of the older teachers are nervous. They don't know what the kids are doing on these devices. If you don't know how to use it, how do you know what they're doing with it?

That’s just the kind of gap Lori Collins and her colleagues mean to address at a conference on April 1st, called Educating the 21st Century Learner.

It’s obviously a hot topic.

The conference is booked full.

For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm Ellen Grimm..