June 7, 2005
Mobiles ring in this silent school
Most Bangkok schools have banned cell phones in the classroom, after students were caught using text messages to cheat on tests. But at the city's first school for the deaf, students are encouraged to bring their phones to classes where SMS text messages have become a valuable teaching tool. [via the AFP]
“In the classroom, the mobile phones are less important, because we're standing face to face, and we can communicate in sign language. But outside the classroom, the phones facilitate other communication between teachers and students,” Rungravee Ditchareon, an art teacher of Sethsathien School, told the AFP.
Students send text messages to teachers to discuss their homework, or to ask what should they bring for school activities, she says.
Text messaging has also proved an effective substitute for calling out someone's name.
“In the past, if I wanted to contact a student I would have to walk through the entire school to find him, but now I can just send an SMS,” Rungravee says."
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