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Anderson said cell phones are getting a second look at the senior high. As the phones have become more pervasive and more powerful, teachers and administrators have begun to look at ways they can be used as tools to enhance education rather than disrupt it. Students with Internet-capable phones have access to the district's Infinite Campus student management system, to check assignments, contact teachers and manage their school life online, he said. Mobile communications are an ever-growing part of what students have to cope with and manage, he said. "It's appropriate to bring that into our curriculum." While more and more students carry more and more powerful mobile phones, those who remain unconnected have one fewer option than they did several years ago. There's no point in a student keeping a few coins in his pocket in case he needs to use a pay phone - coin-operated phones have left the buildings. "I don't think they'd know how to use one," Anderson said.

Our schools are now a desert swept with the winds of yesterday's technology; meanwhile our students can be found drinking from an oasis of smartphones, smart apps and smart interfaces. They have answers to questions we haven't even dared to ask. They outsmart us at every turn.Teenagers upgrade their mobile phone every 12 months. Even the socially disadvantaged are one step ahead of their school's ICT. That's not a problem. That's a huge opportunity schools should grasp. It's an

pportunity to save money and upgrade our thinking about ICT.

What's so wrong with schooling? And what are these old structures that lead to the unemployable? I think Don Ledingham's summary of Alan McCluskey from the Swiss Agency for ICT in education sums it up: The 7 Tacit Lessons Which Schools Teach Children: Knowledge is scarce.Learning needs a specific place and specific time (lessons in classrooms).Knowledge is best learnt in disconnected little pieces (lessons).To learn you need the help of an approved expert i.e. a teacher.To learn you need to follow a path determined by a learning expert (a course of study).You need an expert to assess your progress (a teacher).You can attribute a meaningful numerical value to the value of learning (marks, grades, degrees)