Electronics in the classroom - a collaborative approach

Sometimes an classroom issue needs to be given time to resolve itself in a safe and respectful environment. I was watching closely the development of the issue of personal electronics in our classroom. Today I decided to step in and help the class out with this issue.

Our class has recently had an influx of personal electronic devices in the classroom.  It started with two children bringing in their electronics for academic needs.  Soon others started bringing theirs in, primarily to listening to music while they were working.

Now, these are curious 4th graders, so soon others started bringing in devices. They wanted to share the electronics, people wanted to play video games and share music at lunch.  Some students felt that it wasn't fair that some had devices and others not.  The issue got bigger. One student was frustrated that while he was working, others would type on his page, another said that people were trying to guess his password.

After a while, the students began to make decisions about the issue.  Some stopped bringing their own devices in and used their headphones to listen to music on the classroom computers.  Others found spaces to work on individual projects, so they could listen to their music quietly. The issue started getting smaller again.

Still, however I felt that some guidelines needed to be discussed, just so we were all clear and that we could respect those who had and indeed did not have personal electronics.

We had a wonderful discussion.  The children felt safe to voice their opinions and some felt strongly about their stance.  They worked in small groups to develop guidelines, then we had a class discussion.

These were the main ideas:

• Whatever the guidelines are we must follow them or we would lose our personal electronics for the day.
• The whole issue was unfair - family rules mean't that some children were not allowed to bring electronics to school, so to be fair no one should have them.
• Personal electronics should be allowed but with guidelines - no video games
• Want versus need - a fair idea
• We have always been fine without personal electronics before - why do we need them now?
• People should respect both personal and classroom electronics.
• They should only be for work.
• Idea - how about music from the CD player in a space in the classroom for quiet work.

Well, this was debated and even though the children understand that they will need to follow a lower school policy when it is made, they came up with, I think a well thought out set of guidelines.

Here they are:

• Those that need personal electronics can use them only for academic work.
• Music has to be quiet enough that it is not disturbing others.
• If headphones are being worn, that is a sign that the person wants to work quietly.
• Respect all people using electronics - don't hack, or type on their work.
• Electronic devices need to be treated like our journals.
• Those that don't follow guidelines have to put their device in their backpack for the rest of the day.

I think that the students really thought this through.  The discussion, although full of opinion stayed respectful and not personal.  I think that allowing the students to work on this issue by themselves, it enabled them to see it from many points of view.  They differed in their opinions but were able to come up with a set of guidelines that they felt were fair for everyone.