Technology is extremely present in our modern day world. Eight in 10 people with a smartphone say they don’t leave home without it. That number is being reflected in Saskatoon schools, where teachers are seeing students with iPhones, androids, and blackberries as young as Grade 5.
“Everyone uses them during the breaks and we’re not supposed to use them during class, but we use them during class,” said Marshall, a grade 9 student at Bethlehem Catholic High School.
The phones were once seen as a distraction, but not every teacher sees it that way anymore.
“We want that to shift a little bit. Rather than looking it as an issue, we want to be where the opportunities are now where we can use these devices that are coming into our schools,” said Saskatoon Public School superintendent Whitman Jaigobin.
The catholic and public school boards leave it up to each school to decide their own cell phone policy. In most cases, there’s a three strike rule. The catholic school board said if a student gets past the three strikes, parents are usually called in to pick up the offending phone.
Some students use the phones in their lessons, even using the camcorders and cameras to create multimedia projects.
“Technology is part of our daily lives so, so in education we need to continually look at these opportunities that we can provide students,” Jaigobin said.
Officials said that teaching core values like respect and etiquette are now taught in relation to technology.
