The Phone Counter

Published: 2023-10-17 6:48 PM

Category: Teaching | Tags: technology, code, subtle, hints, teachable moment, mobile phone

Sometimes, you just need to make a point in class. A small comment or sidebar conversation is a way to do that verbally, but other times, it's more helpful to be subtle.

I'm battling a ton of phone use in two of my classes. Boys are on a game, girls are usually on Snapchat. This means their attention isn't focused on productive thinking routines and my attention is pushed toward management rather than teaching. That's a bad classroom mix and not a good way to promote learning. Students are convinced they can do more than one thing at a time but all the research points to context switching being a bad thing for learning.

Instead of lecturing students on phone use - again - I decided to take a more subtle approach. That started with making a really stupid app.

See the Pen Counter by Brian (@bbennett) on CodePen.

It's an incremental counter and a timer. If the counter is on zero, the timer will count how many seconds it stays at zero. If it's incremented at all, the timer resets to zero.

While they were working on day, I slid this in a small window up on to the projector and counted up the phones I saw being used for anything other than school (there are some legit uses). I stayed at the front, just scanning the room, and updating the total as phones came out and went away. Slowly, some whispers started about what I was doing. Some observant individuals put the puzzle together and word quickly spread to put phones away.

Once they were all away, the timer started counting and then game was afoot. Some table groups were convinced they could "beat" the game (not sure how...) and came up with some social rules like:

• All phones face down, last one to receive a notification wins
• No touching at pain of an ear flick
• Phones go away because Mr. Bennett shouldn't have to custom code a counter to make a point.

This was definitely a gimmick, but I think it was helpful that they saw, at one point, a full half of the class was distracted and off task. I did remind them that my energy is better spent teaching and not on counting phones. I think they got the point? I'm not sure.

I'm implementing voluntary phone jail this week as a way to have students self-regulate. The phone can either go into a shoe organizer hanging in a safe space so they can see it, but cannot access it. The other option is a brown paper lunch bag stapled shut on their desk so it's nearby but inaccessible. If the voluntary approach doesn't work, some will be compelled to surrender their device to help them actually learn some self restraint and maybe even some chemistry.

There will be an update in the near future. If you'd like to use the dumb phone counter, you're more than welcome to give it a shot. Send me an email and I can add your comments to the post with your experience.