De Bonos Hats and mobile phones in the classroom.

Upon first thinking about the concept of primary or secondary students being allowed to have mobile phones in the classroom I wondered what the world had come too. My initial thoughts were all negative. Firstly, they would be a distraction to the students rather then an aid.  Phones allow easy access to social media, games, cameras and other applications that students would be more interested in then classroom activities. I could see students constantly checking there phones for messages and updates on there phones.
These are the first of other problems that I could see occurring in schools. Other negative attributes that would have a connection with phones be bullying, theft, misuse of cameras and misuse of the internet.

This negative thought process which I underwent was the first thinking hat in the thinking strategy of de Bono's hats. I read about the hats and the process in which they allow thinking and i decided to apply this thinking strategy to the idea of Mobile phones in the school classroom. I felt that i had already made my mind up about this subject, however the thought process de Bono's six hats give gave me a deeper and broader thinking. 
The Hats made me look at the what positives that could arise by allowing students to have mobile phones in the classroom. I realised that they were in fact great engagement tools, helped with research and provided aid in subjects such as maths and science. Mobile phones, and in particular smart phones, allow students access to cameras, calculators, weather forecasts, stop watches and applications that encourage learning. A great application that i have on my phone is sky view. This free application allows you to locate all the constellations in the sky along with telling you the history of the stars. I could see this application being used from classes in grade three, too grade seven class'. With these positives, I found myself  wanting mobile phones to be allowed into the classrooms. However the positives don't eradicate the negatives in the notion, therefore solutions must be schemed.
Two ideas which I contemplated was firstly the implementation of a monitoring system which allows teachers to veiw whatever the students is veiwing at the time on their phone. This would be accessed by a computer and would be a similar program to what schools have implemented on laptops and desktops. The second was the idea of a wi-fi system that blocked the use of games, their telecommunication reception and applications on phones. The wi-fi could only be unlocked by the classroom teacher at times that the teacher required.

The use of the de Bonos thinking hats was quite remarkable. It allowed me to think broader and actually think about the use of mobile phones in the classroom rather then focusing on the negatives. I still believe that the safety and well being of students is at hindrance with the introduction of mobile phones however, with the correct modulation and implementation of schemes, mobile phones could be used as a great I.T.C tool for teachers. Until these solutions have been properly investigated and implemented, I believe that mobile phones should stay at home.