Please Keep Your Phone On at All Times During Class

Students and their phones has become a single symbiotic organism. Always plugged into social media of one form or another, whether it is through texting, Twitter (News - Alert), or even Snapchat. For today’s school teachers it must be a daunting task to compete with the always interesting arsenal of mobile distractions young learners are equipped with during school hours.

Education technology company Pearson has turned the tides in this war for children’s attention into a winning solution for educators. The company has purchased Learning Catalytics, a Harvard startup that can use smartphones, laptops, and tablets to engage every student in constant curriculum-based interactions. Students from kindergarten to grade 12 can answer questions in real-time on the devices that cherish while teachers can use Learning Catalytics to gauge participation and understanding in ways that raising hands never could.

There are other companies that offer similar services. Top Hat Monocle and Socratic both help engage students in the same way: by taking over the devices that leech their attention from the classroom studies. Top Hat Monocle, an in-class and at-home learning tool that can interface with PowerPoint was also recently snatched up by Pearson, and is considered cutting edge in Canadian schools, receiving financial support from the Ontario Government.

Pearson’s higher education president of science, business and technology Paul Cory is quick to point out the key features that set Learning Catalytics apart from the other learning tools on the market. Whereas most of these systems currently only offer multiple choice questions to be sent out, Learning Catalytics allows for a variety of styles of questions to be asked. It also offers real-time visual analysis to teachers, information that can help with efficiently pairing students for group work, ideally placing students who display a strong understanding of the taught material with those who don’t have as strong a grasp.

Despite this recent acquisition of technology similar to what it already offers, Pearson has indicated that it plans to continue its deal with Top Hat Monocle, offering a discount subscription to the learning tool with the purchase of other Pearson products.

Wisconsin is one state that has embraced mobile devices as educational tools and has already experienced viral success. However, there are also some limitations even with these tools. For example, not every student has access to the technology that is required to host these services, especially at home. Unless the school can provide the necessary hardware to children who don’t have the fortune of having the Internet in their pocket, the services will still be limited in reach for some.