Dear Parents,

It may seem to you that I am constantly pausing every few minutes to glance at my phone, picking it up, and disengaging myself from my homework assignments. I know that there is nothing more frustrating for you than when I’m sitting at the counter and my pencil is lying down and my phone is in my hands, but have you looked at what is actually on the screen?

Because if you did, you may think twice before taking it away while I do homework.

Phones, believe it or not, are used for things other than messaging and social media.

As schools develop and become more comfortable with technology, they look to incorporate it in the classroom and encourage communication between teachers and students through certain programs. Londonderry has adopted many of these programs, including Google Drive, Twitter, and Edmodo, to name a few, so please know I actually need my phone to do homework.

Not convinced?  Let me break down how these online resources work:

Google Drive allows students to communicate with their teachers and other peers by sharing documents, adding comments, editing other’s papers which are all kept in one neat spot- not in all sorts of folders webbing throughout the school computers that can’t be accessed at home.

A joint lab report requires two people to complete a report together. This can be accomplished through Google Docs. By sharing the assignment between you and your lab partner, you both have access to the document and can add to the report, truthfully allowing it to be joint, not just one person did all the work in their own document and has to share the credit.

Twitter is a popular social media application used by many students to follow their friends. Students are encouraged to follow their teachers’ school accounts so that they can receive updates and information on their classes through their social media. Teachers release updates on the class, photos taken in class, and many teachers also tweet links, or photos that relate to what the class is doing. Schoolwide event reminders are also announced through twitter.

In particular history classes, teachers can share links on Twitter of articles on current events that relate to the curriculum being talked about in class. This incorporates learning into social media, and students who spend a lot of time on social media are likely to see. By doing this, it’s bringing learning outside the classroom, and can create a topic of conversation in class the following day if enough people scrolling through their Twitter feed see it and read it.

Quizlet is an app for students that can be used to make a study set of electronic flash cards, where they can mark specific cards to study more or study less. Quizlet can also generate mock “tests” that incorporate the information from the study set. Teachers can share study sets with their classes and can track who in their class studies the set, for how long, and what they find difficult.

Weekly vocabulary quizzes are a common occurrence for many English classes. If they don’t take part in Membean, lists of words are required to be known within two days. Plug these words and definitions into Quizlet and you have a study set that not only you, but other people in your class, can study from. These words are now on flashcards that don’t clutter your backpack and can be studied whenever.

Edmodo is a notifier that the school requires teachers to use to send out due dates and assignments to students. Edmodo can be used to share class template documents and updates on the class. If a class is meeting in the library on a certain day, the teacher can Edmodo students to remind them. These notifications can be sent as a text to a phone so students can see them. This platform can also be used to directly contact teachers with questions that may arise as students do homework and review.

If there is a mistake on a homework answers, or the wrong answer sheet for math homework that day was handed out, and teachers notice after the class was dismissed, they  can send an Edmodo the class group the document of the correct answers for that particular set of problems. Answers for review guides can also be posted on Edmodo so that students doing a review packet can check their answers and accomplish it at their own pace. Many documents and helpful reminders are sent through Edmodo.

Texting is a very efficient way of communicating. Not all conversations are about the latest gossip. Often times, group chats are created for classes. When assignments get tough, or the math lesson just doesn’t make sense, the students in the groupchat put their brains together to figure out how to come up with an answer, or how to accomplish the worksheet. That happens to be more efficient that staring at an assignment completely lost on how to begin it. Group projects are also pretty common in classes, and how else can you complete it without communicating with your group?

A group problem set in math is to be done- as a group. In most cases, class time is given for group problem sets, but not always, and if there is and it’s not finished,it still needs to be completed. Through a group chat, or texting between group members, the students are able to communicate with their group and figure out how to do the problems. They can all check answers to see that they came out with the same result.

The Internet. We all know what this is. It is one of, if not the most, helpful tool when trying to get assignments done. This can be used for almost anything. If a book from your English class has an allusion that you’re not sure what exactly it is, a quick Google search can solve that mystery. If a math problem deals with conversions, plug them right into a conversation calculator from the web. It has the answers to any and all issues.

I know you have my best interest and you hate to see me sit at the counter for all hours of the night trying to crank out the two papers, nine worksheets, and study for the three tests I have the next day. But when you take my phone away because it’s a “distraction” are you helping me, or are you hurting me?

“Just go to the computer,” you say. “You can get everything on there.”

Sure, the computer has all of the resources that my phone has, and a bigger screen, but my phone allows me to access these in a more efficient way than the computer.

Getting to these accounts on my phone is just a few taps here and there and I’m in. My logins are saved and all of my data is there. On the computer, each time I have to get into an account I have to type in my logins and enter my passcode which can get tedious when logging into 4+ different accounts.

Not to say that I don’t take a few minutes here and there to update myself on the ways of the world, but my homework completion is aided greatly by my cell phone.

So for future refrence, no, I am not just putting off all my work. I am truthfully getting my two papers, nine worksheets done, and studying for the three tests I have tomorrow.