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“The advantages of digital media now greatly outweigh the disadvantages and require that schools update their thinking and policies to provide guidance on the use of these tools to improve student learning and achievement,” the paper says.

“Digital responsibility is big.” Rankin said. “We’re teaching students how to operate in this new world. We wanted to change the wording in our guidelines because we don’t want students to accept them; we want students to be responsible for them.”

“The depth of thought and level of discourse gets much deeper when you add an online environment,” Wells said. The teacher can present information in class, and then the students are free to explore it online – they can look at other students’ work, or check out videos on YouTube. Time constraints are no longer a factor, the process becomes more individualized, and school becomes more relevant, Wells said.

students,

complete a training session with their parents and sign an acceptable-use policy before they can use their ­personal devices to connect to the school's wireless ­network

Afterward, each student receives a sticker ­indicating that his or her device is wireless-certified.

have students engage in one or both of the following exercises:

Ask students: How are cellphones used, and how can they be used, in our society today?

Engage students in a discussion about your school’s cellphone rules. Ask: What are the rules? What is the reason or philosophy behind them? How do they see students using cellphones in school? If cellphones are banned, how would they like to use cellphones in school? How are the rules enforced?

All of these require professional development and a systemic mindset that such an environment is desired. The latter requires leadership. The former requires both leadership and learning.

ext blast through Remind101, asking them a challenge question that’s related to the day’s lesson. “First person to tell me the units on K for a second order reaction gets chocolate,” he types and sends off. His students know he does this regularly, so they’re constantly anticipating the question during the day, in and out of class.

fun ways to stay motivated in our day,

hum gets louder when kids are excited or working together, then quieter again when they’re working out problems on their individual little whiteboards

Using Socrative, an app that shows real-time poll results for both multiple-choice and short-answer quizzes, he challenges his students at the end of class to answer specific questions in order to get a broad look at whether they understood the concepts discussed that day.

responsible use policies, parent and/or student agreements, and lessons about safety/etiquette.

classroom management techniques must be updated

Educators who are successful at integrating technology into learning understand this and provide agreed upon times for students to engage in personal affairs on their digital devices--just as we all do in the real world.