Phones for the Future?

Cathie’s posting “The Future of Education” prompted me to also read Marc Prensky’s article “But the Screen Is Too Small”, out of curiosity as to how phones similar to that of the new Nokia n-Gage mobile phone, could possibly be used appropriately by all the students in a classroom. As mentioned by Cathie, benefits of these devices include “features such as a thumb print reader, a built in Wi-Fi and the ability to run any program” as well as enabling students to “submit their homework electronically.”

When I first read Cathie’s posting, I felt doubtful that buying a phone for each child was a better investment than having computers which the children can just share instead. These uncertainties brought me to delve right into the article and find out how this could be. I soon found out further advantages of this device which started to convince me that perhaps these phones could possibly be a big hit, with their ability to be upgraded easily each year if necessary, the less maintenance required to operate them in comparison to computers and the fact that they were voice based which would enable students to practice their reading and foreign languages if they wanted. Therefore I think that there is a chance for these cell phones to be a success in educating students in the future if they are reliable and affordable.

Source: http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/phones_all_ssh.jpg