children and mobile phones

9 out of 10 ten year - olds have mobile phones, and even those who are younger have mobile phones (a mobile survey from Telenor). They use it to listen to call with, listen to music, to take photos and to search the web. Do the children really need a mobile phone?

Mobile phone radiation is one of the factors why kids shouldn’t have any mobile phones. A Swedish study says that children are FIVE times more exposed to cellular readioation than adults. The study recommends children to use the sms instead of calling with the phone. Only use the phone to call with in emergencies.

- Mobile phones and bullying:

15% of the children between the age of 13 to 16, has expirienced bullying via mobile phones or via the net.

Here are some facts from ung.no about sms-bullying.

In this clip you can see an example of how a mobile phone can be used for bullying.

Do the children know what's right or wrong when using the mobile phone? There have been some problems at schools with children using the camera on the back of the mobile phone, to film other students in odd situations, and then to show it off to others. Bullying professor Erling Roland says in an interview with "Puls" on NRK; - Since it is quite common with a camera and even recording oppurtunities for video on mobile, I think the scope of the problem is going ti increase, 8 - and 9 year olds have great opportunities to take the picture and spread it,but little chance to understand what this means.

So it can end up with pictures and/or videos uploaded to the net, without knowing the consequence of what could happen to the person on tape. This could also give children new ways of bullying others. Why should children have mobile phones? When should they get one? In this clip we can hear CBS News education expert Amy James talks about kids and mobile phones.

I think the main reason why children should have a mobile phone is so they could be reached, at any time. When your kid hasn't come home from practise, it would be nice just to pick up the phone and ask where he/she is, and why he/she hasn't come home. You can even track your kid down. mBuddy is a service wich provides you the opportunity to find the other person via the mobile phones signal. Both owners of the phones have to agree that this service should take place.

Other pros for mobile phones for children is that they could get to learn, in early age, what kind of possibilities there is in ICT nowadays. They get to learn how to use the mobile phones, how to behave in medias like the internet and written and unwritten rules that can come along this device.

-Parental control.

But there is a catch. It is important that the children have good role-models and someone who can guide them to a propper way to act. Superiors should, in cooperation with the kid, make rules of what is allowed, how to use the phone and thoughts about how they both want to use the phone.

Homework, does it work??

An on and on going debate is homework! Does it work? Why do we have it and what's it good for? On the other hand homework is culturally contitioned over many years, and it's a platitude that we still have homework. So homework, does it work?

PROs: Homework can have an important role in the cooperation between school and home. This will give parents an opportunity to take part in student training. Homework contributes the students to learn to take responsibility and it teaches them good working practices. Students, who practice, will learn!
Here's a short film created to encourage students to do their homework.



CONs: Schoolwork belongs to the school. Today the children are really busy. More busy then before. So when the school is finished they hurry home to eat, then it is off to football practice, gymnastics or something else. And when the training is over, they want to be social with their friends with what’s left of the evening.
And if the children don’t have much to do, they often have siblings which are occupied. Then the parents have travel from one to another just to keep the wheels spinning. And then there is this kid at home who needs help and follow-up with his/hers homework. He/her feels adversity evening after evening.


The homework these days aren’t the same as in “the old days”, so many students feel that the grown-ups at home can’t contribute with any help and there are also grown-ups. Students from minority backgrounds can have parents who haven’t the qualification to help in Norwegian. So they end up felling adversity…again.
Education Act hasn’t got any provisions in it which says that homework is decreed by law. It is just an old tradition which says that homework is necessary.
Here is an article from the newspaper Aftenposten who talks about the topic.
So as you all can see there are more CONs than PROs. So am I against homework? What do I mean?
I mean that homework is something that we have to practice. Why? I do believe that homework is important for the parents because this gives them an opportunity to take part in student training. According to the new research from Statistics Norway students can learn more, but especially those who have high – educated- parents.

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What about the other parents and their students? Well I do believe in this statistics and I do believe that we have to find a solution that can help this group. How? What about more quality on homework at home and homework – lessons at school. This gives, especially students who has little help at home, a chance to get equal help. This means that the school needs to have homework-help at school.

According to the newspaper Dagsavisen students rush less and no truant from lessons anymore. So it is clearly that it gives a positive effect on the students in many ways. The students now have some spare time to use at home with their friends and family.

What do I mean about more quality at home? I do mean that the teacher needs to choose homework which is thought through and can be done at home. The teacher needs to follow up this homework back at school so it has a learning objective.

If a teacher could manage to combine do these two things I do believe he has done a good job.