More educators are wising up, they say, to the reality that most students have phones or other mobile devices that could allow them to give real-time feedback to a lecture on a text-message back channel, take pictures during a science field trip, or answer teacher prompts with online polling.
And with the increasing capabilities and prevalence of mobile devices, the growing demand for K-12 students to be comfortable learning online, and the shrinking technology budgets of districts coping with the aftermath of the Great Recession, allowing students to use their own mobile devices is making more sense to more people.