Smart Devices

In the four months since Orange County Public Schools in Florida banned students from using cellphones at school, teachers and staff have seen positive changes. Some students are irked they can't use phones at lunch.

School IT departments could make progress on backlogs of device repairs by availing themselves of student tech-support teams, like those being piloted at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education through Vivacity Tech.

With post-pandemic education relief funding programs drawing to a close, the nonprofit Consortium for School Networking has advice for K-12 schools on careful shopping, additional funding and maintenance practices.

Verizon has reached out to Houston Independent School District to extend the terms of the Digital Promise program by which students and teachers get free devices and data plans, but the district has not responded.

Emergency responders in one Washington county have been dispatched to four false alarms in the past couple of weeks, thanks to the new car crash detection feature on iPhone 14s and 15s and the latest Apple Watches.

The Nampa City Council authorized the department to buy nearly $79,000 worth of technology from Cellebrite, a company that sells tools to unlock phones and obtain their data for police and government agencies.

Students are playing a key role in tweaking a mobile app that offers 24/7 advice, reassurances, and links to activities or informational videos for teens, and it's relieving some overworked school counselors.

The mobile app seeks to make it easier for transit drivers to complete administrative tasks, keep in touch with management and communicate about schedules. It also aims to help agencies retain drivers amid a shortage.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to conduct a nationwide test to gauge how effective the government’s mass communication can be in the event of an emergency, the agency said in a statement.

A new policy at Central Regional School District requires students in grades 7-12 to store their phones during class and gives officials authority to search the content of the phones under certain circumstances.

Starting next year, Google will begin providing 10 years of automatic software updates for all Chromebooks released in 2021 and beyond, saving schools from having to toss the devices due to baked-in expiration dates.

Through a government program called Community Eligibility Provision, a school district in Indiana is providing student families with access to tablets and a monthly Internet service even during the summer.

Finding that students had become exceptionally reliant on cell phones while locked down during COVID-19, a Massachusetts school district now requires them to store phones in magnetically sealed pouches during the day.

Under a deal with the Minnesota Department of Human Services, approved by the St. Paul City Council in June, police officers have around-the-clock access to a controversial smartphone-hacking device called GrayKey.

Given a massive influx of personal devices in the years since COVID-19, schools are making more use of asset-management systems to keep track of inventory and plan ahead for technology audits.

Students are going to use their cellphones one way or another, and trying to ban them precludes their potential usefulness as PRTs — portable research tools — that can enrich lessons and engage students in novel ways.

As schools across the U.S. consider banning cellphones amid a student mental health crisis, a Michigan district is weighing the need for study and deliberation against the need to make a decision before the new year begins.

Nebraska's second largest school district will not allow students to use phones during class, and it's rolling out digital hall passes in high schools to track missed instructional time and limit out-of-class behavioral issues.