• 05 November 2024
• 4 minutes

The recent ministerial circular adopted in Italy on banning the use of mobile phones in the classroom has sparked debate on the issue. But can such a ban really work? We put the question to Luca Botturi, Professor in Media in Education at the Department of Formation and Learning / Alta scuola pedagogica.

Prof. Botturi, can a ban make sense in this case?

The discussion that has arisen highlights an ancient conflict that always accompanies the arrival of 'new' technologies: to prohibit or to educate? However, this is not a real dichotomy: one educates both by defining rules and limits and by proposing a healthy, wise and balanced use of the tools. That said, the debate sometimes takes on surreal tones.

The school as a whole, or individual schools, clearly have the right to ban anything that they deem disruptive to their mission, which is the learning and growth of their pupils. This is why one cannot usually run between classrooms in roller skates and eating during lessons is prohibited. If headmasters, teachers and institutions find the smartphone unnecessary or in the way, I don't see the problem. I don't think this choice deprives young people of 'modernity'. Besides, when we talk about technology we are often too general. What is the problem with the smartphone?

Having a personal device in the classroom that allows you to search and share information, take pictures, shoot videos, do calculations and correct grammar is clearly useful. But if while doing these things I also receive notifications from two social accounts, WhatsApp and a video game, it clearly doesn't work. The problem is not the device itself, but the tools, i.e. the apps, that it carries. Today, most of these apps aim to maximise our screen time in order to send personalised advertising messages, using even ethically unsound systems. In the face of such aggressive apps, the ban makes sense: it preserves pupils' attention and serenity.

In any case, video games and social media can be a start, not the finish line. The real challenge is to understand digital not as a game, but as a tool. Technology today can be found in hospitals, agriculture, tourism, culture. What we need are young people who can understand, use and reinvent these tools to shape the technology of tomorrow.

How is the use of mobile phones currently regulated in schools in our canton?

In general, smartphones are only used at school if the teacher explicitly requests or allows it because it makes sense to do so in relation to teaching activities. Otherwise, the phone must remain switched off in the folder.

This allows a certain flexibility with respect to the different situations of individual classes and/or pupils, and also to 'calibrate' the indication in the individual school. On the other hand, the Department of Education, Culture and Sport has always rightly ruled out the use of social platforms for teaching purposes.

When we speak of digital technology we instinctively think of the smartphone, but the concept encompasses much broader aspects. What does research have to say about the usefulness and effects of these technologies applied to teaching and education?

Research on technologies in schools has always oscillated between two extremes. From the phonograph at the end of the 19th century to the AI of today, every time a new technology enters the school world a chorus claims that these tools will revolutionise and improve schooling, while others insist that they will ruin educational and didactic work.

More realistically, the data says that technologies per se do not generate better teaching. Thousands of studies note that 'there is no significant difference' between technological and non-technological contexts. Perhaps the first time a tool is used, e.g. the interactive whiteboard, there is a motivation effect (it is called the 'Las Vegas effect') that disappears very quickly. But there's more: research shows that technologies often favour the best students over the weak ones, widening the gap between those who excel and those who struggle in school, a gap that we were able to observe particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Technology at school, however, is not useless: it can really make a difference if a teacher learns how to use it and integrates it into his or her teaching in an intelligent manner.

The creativity of the teacher himself, who knows how to evaluate the tool in relation to the class, the content, the situation and his own skills, is crucial. I am thinking of the use of digital recordings to improve reading, spreadsheets with automatic correction for mental calculation, or interactive simulations: these are tools that, if integrated in a balanced way into the 'didactic diet' of a class, can do a lot. Not to mention the tools that can help those with learning disorders or special difficulties.

Digital technologies at school: what is the situation in Ticino?

In Ticino, teachers receive initial training in the use of technologies, but to a lesser extent than at other Pedagogical High Schools. This corresponds to the fact that we are one of the few cantons in which the area of 'Technology and Media' in the curriculum is a transversal competence and not a school subject - i.e. it has no hours in the hourly grid, nor is it assessed, and there are no specialist teachers of that subject in secondary schools. Digital education is a task for everyone that is in danger of becoming a task for no one.

However, there is no shortage of significant advances, such as the updating of the infrastructure of the cantonal schools and the in-service teacher training carried out by the Centre for Educational and Digital Resources (CERDD).

There are also a number of experiments and projects conducted by the Department of Formation and Learning / SUPSI's Alta scuola pedagogica involving several school levels, in particular the licei, where for some years now the subject of information technology has been introduced by the Federal Maturity School Framework Plan. However, an organic framework involving the compulsory school as a whole and with adequate resources is still lacking.