Homework -Cell Phones in School?

Read the story. Answer the questions.

WESLEY CHAPEL, Florida (Friday, 11/27/09): High School teacher Ariana Leonard's  students waited in their seats for her to tell them what to do.

"Take out your cell phones," she said in Spanish.

The teens pulled out an array of colorful flip phones, iPhones and SideKicks. They divided into groups and Leonard began sending them text messages in Spanish: Find something green. Go to the cafeteria. Take a picture with the school secretary.

Leonard's class at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel, a middle-class Florida suburb about 30 miles north of Tampa, is one of a growing number around the country that are abandoning traditional policies of banning cell phones. Instead teachers are using them to teach  class lessons. Spanish vocabulary becomes a digital scavenger hunt. Notes are copied with a cell phone camera. Text messages serve as homework reminders.

Much more attention has gone to the ways students might use phones to cheat or take inappropriate pictures. But as the technology becomes cheaper, more advanced and more ingrained in students' lives that way of thinking is changing.

Today's phones are the equivalent of small computers — able to check e-mail, do Internet searches and record podcasts. Meanwhile, most school districts can't afford a computer for every student.

"Because there's so much in the media about banning cell phones and how negative phones can be, a lot of people just haven't considered there could be positive, educative ways to use cell phones," said Liz Kolb, author of "From Toy to Tool: Cell Phones in Learning."

Even districts with tough anti-use policies acknowledge they will eventually need to change.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What was the High School teacher's name?

4) What did she use cell phones to do in her class?

5) Why are cell phones against the rules in most schools?

6) Why are some schools letting students have their phones during school?

7) What is your opinion? Should we let students have cell phones in schools? Why or why not?

Info and video from Yahoo