Marc Prensky Recommendations for NYC Cell Phone Program © 2008 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________
Recommendations for NYC Cell Phone Program
Some suggestions for success
By Marc Prensky
I have the following thoughts about and suggestions for the NYC Schools
Cell Phone Program: 1. Despite the recommendations from a Harvard professor, giving phones to students for academic progress and especially attendance is a bad idea in my opinion. It is essentially paying kids to go to school. Do not be swayed by terms like “supply-side” – they came back to bite Reagan and will come back to bite you. If you think paying kids to go to school is a good idea, then pay them a wage they have to earn (and if this sounds wrong, so is the other). 2. What I think would work for the cell phones, is to give them to all kids in a class, and reward them with the privileges they can have on those cell phones, all of which are school/learning related. These can include having access to: A calculator for math The ability to reach an expert in something you are interested in Wikipedia Things to hear, memorize and perform for a contest (e.g. The “I have a dream” speech, passages from movies) e. Hooking up with a student your age in a different English speaking country or state. f. Hooking up with a student your age in a Spanish speaking country in your time zone. g. Etc. a. b. c. d.
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Marc Prensky Recommendations for NYC Cell Phone Program © 2008 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________
3. Give phones to students not as individuals, but by class, with classes chosen by choosing the teachers (in Middle and High School a consortium of teachers) who will innovate with the phones. 4. Start with one class per school. This should make other kids want them. Fight theft by getting phones with remote GPS tracking, picture taking etc. 5. One class per school x 35 kids/class x 1400 schools = 49,000, so if you are looking at 10,000 you will need to choose the schools and pare the number down to 1/5 or approx 300 schools. This is good, because those 300 teachers will have to be in constant communication over what they do, what works, and what doesn’t. (300 may even be too many, depending on management available.) 6. There should also be an elected group of one student per class, also meeting and communicating. These students should all have permission to call/text each other, and to call any of the teachers or administrators in the program. 7. Blogging is an ideal way to communicating what works and doesn’t, and to post questions. Teachers and students in the program should be required to post at least 1x per week about their experiences. 8. Teachers should also create (with their students) and post You Tube type videos demonstrating what works. 9. The blogs should be open to the world, and ideas and suggestions should be solicited from around the world. Organizing this information and vetting the comments on the blogs will be a full-time job. 10. More to come.
Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed thought leader, speaker, writer, consultant, and game designer in the critical areas of education and learning. He is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw Hill, 2001) and Don’t Bother Me, Mom, I’m Learning (Paragon House, 2006). Marc is the founder and CEO of Games2train, a game-based learning company, whose clients include IBM, Bank of America, Pfizer , the U.S. Department of Defense and the LA and Florida Virtual Schools. He is also the creator of the sites www.SocialImpactGames.com, and www.GamesParentsTeachers.com . Marc holds an MBA from Harvard and a Masters in Teaching from Yale. More of his writings can be found at www.marcprensky.com/writing/default.asp . Marc can be contacted at marc@games2train.com .
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Marc Prensky Recommendations for NYC Cell Phone Program © 2008 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________
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