With emerging technology appearing as cell phone functions and applications, educators and corporations are looking for ways to make their product marketable to the classroom.  There is more information about this topic in the New York Times.  Click here to read about it for yourself.  So far computers, video games, interactive whiteboard, movie-like-screens, and many more developments have been smoothly integrated into the classroom and it's curriculum.  So why not cellphones?

Cell phones are a wonderful device that provide adults with necessary means of communication and youth with an element of safety.  But can they really be a useful educational tool or are they a distraction and a nuisance?  I don't have a problem with technology as long as it doesn't stand in the way of education with the disguise of furthering it. 

Students in my class were required to learn how to use a bilingual dictionary to facilitate their expanding vocabulary of French or Spanish.  Unfortunately, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the majority of the students didn't know how to use a regular dictionary, much less a bilingual one.  These techno-kids were so used to having Google or an online dictionary do the work for them that they didn't understand the concept of looking for words that were listed alphabetically.  Now, you can view this as a failure of some teacher somewhere along the way but I suspect it was more due to the rigorous technology requirements that are placed on teachers.  Locally or state mandated, teachers are required to incorporate technology.  Well, unfortunately when you add something new, something old usually has to go by the wayside.  In this case it was using the dictionary. 

My question with the cell phone technology is what is it going to replace and vital will that skill be at some point down the road?