9 Gadgets Go To Class

Instead of banning kids' phones, some schools are starting to embrace them

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Photo-Illustration by Bartholomew Cooke for TIME

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BYOT also raises equality issues. It's true that most kids have cell phones, but they aren't necessarily carrying smart phones that are capable of running elaborate apps. Some families can't afford a cell phone of any type. School districts can lend devices to students who have less money. But the choice may create a high-tech version of who's on the free-lunch list in the cafeteria.

Tech advocates are convinced that it's worth the trouble. "Parents are desperate for kids to be prepared for the jobs of the future," says Julie Evans, executive director of Project Tomorrow, a nonprofit that studies how to use mobile tech in schools and is partly funded by HP. "We have to create a classroom experience with the tools they already own. If we do that, they won't wander off into Facebook or play a game." When Project Tomorrow studied a classroom pilot project in North Carolina, it found that students who had used the mobile devices to collaborate on school projects scored better on standardized tests than kids who hadn't.

Those test scores are at once encouraging and dispiriting. Any parent knows that mobile devices erase the idea of separation between work and home. Kids may be right that using their mobiles at school will be fun--but they might feel a little less fun when deployed to do homework.

FOR MORE BY BONNIE ROCHMAN, GO TO time.com/rochman

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