Thoghts on Handheld and Mobile Phones in Learning

Cell phones and handhelds are ubiquitous. In fact, many people feel a little anxious and nervous when they do not have their cell phones. Such dependency on technology is making us examine ways to use handhelds and mobile phones for learning.
Handhelds are mind bogglingly diverse and advanced these days. The life we’ve seen in the Japanese video is not an exaggeration for the near future. Phones such as the iPhone are capable of browsing the internet, playing music and video files, keeping your daily schedule, and of course act as a phone. If used properly, such a machine in the hands of every student can mean faster accessibility to teachers, better accessibility to hundreds and thousands of resources on the web, and faster learning through educational handheld programming. While all the ideas seem positive up to this point, there are major problems. For instance, how can you monitor the activity of each and every student? How do you know they are using the handheld device for the intended purpose of looking at say, dinosaurs, and not talking to their friends in another class? These problems might be addressed in the near future, but they are technologically and economically impossible endeavors at most schools. Frankly, I believe that the distraction would outweigh the learning factor for handheld devices.
Nevertheless, I believe the handheld device can play a less of a role in learning. Handheld devices are devices of communication and organization. As such, handheld devices shouldn’t be used as actual tools to display information on-screen (we have slides and computers for that). However, what it can be used as is to keep the students up to date on the events that are relevant to the student’s education. For example, a text can be sent to each student reminding them of what is due tomorrow and next week every day. In a more recent case at St. John’s University, the student body was warned of a gunman on the loose via mass text messages. In all fairness, the students may not take a homework text message as seriously as a text message about a psychotic gunman, but the point is to make it easy for the students should they ever feel inspired or motivated to do their homework or projects.