Today’s post is a split post about gadgets and stuff.

Smartphones:
One of the current issues we are dealing with at the school where I work is about how smartphones should be used in the class. In the junior high, students are not allowed to have their cellphones turned on. If a student gets caught with a live cellphone, we are supposed to confiscate the phone and turn it over the homeroom teacher who metes out the proper punishment.

In high school it’s more complicated. Students are allowed to have phone and the dilemma becomes how to use them in class. Right now the most common use is as replacements for both paper and electronic dictionaries. Some teachers allow their use (me, with some controls) others don’t like them at ll.

In my case I set a time limit. Students can use the phone for two minutes. I’m trying to prevent them from using translators. Not only is this lazy, but the English is often bad.

For example, after a couple trips through a translator “I don’t like eating too much pasta but I can’t stop eating pizza.” becomes “I do not like it too much to eat pasta, but I can not stop eating pizza.” “I like to watch tv after school but I don’t like to watch it on Sunday because I have to do my English homework.” becomes “I like to watch TV after school, so I have to do my English homework, I do not like to see it on Sunday.”

In such cases I usually mark the sentence with a question mark and the explanation that it’s not really English.

(Note: It’s also understood that if I catch them playing a game or texting I will own their phone for a few days.)

Small and Light:
For the teachers the battle is over CD players and it’s quite a cutthroat battle.

The school has a small allotment of CD working CD players and an even smaller allotment of light and easy to carry ones. This leads to shameless hoarding. Teachers will walk in to school, set down their bags and grab the smallest CD player available, even if they won’t need it for a couple hours. This is done by both men and women. In fact, I’ve seen large, athletic men practically race each other to the shelf to grab the smallest available CD player.

Illicit deals are made where Teacher A agrees to pass the small CD player to Teacher B. Teacher C hides a small one under her desk. Teacher D takes a large CD player and then complains for a while about how heavy it is.

This has prompted a lot of teachers to acquire their own small CD players. Personally, I’m hoping most of them do because that will leave the school CD players for me. Also, I tend to grab the heaviest one anyway because I consider it the gentlemanly thing to do.

I then get my worst student to carry it back to the office.