The smartphone from teachers' perspective: A guiding tool or a cyberbullying catalyst?

Abstract

The mobile era turns one decade of maturity but educational institutions do not seem to assimilate changes imposed by digital society. The need to assemble tutoring methods supported with popular technology is not new, but rather an added issue over preceding pitfalls with technologies like Internet or social networks. In this context, cyberbullying represents one of the main reasons for this discrepancy where teachers and educational directors struggle to harmonize the use of mobile devices in schools. This manuscript explores from the perspective of 135 teachers (M=32) how mobiles are used for learning, their inclination with regard to use own devices and social networks for tutoring students, threats and opportunities of mobile devices, which regulation they know with regard to the use of mobile devices in schools, and the age they consider suitable for children to own a smartphone. The results not only provide evidence of the risks in immature-delivery of smartphone to a child/adolescent, but also show lessons learned to facilitate tutoring supported with mobile technology. Overall this work provides a base of relevant knowledge for future research to assemble suitable use of mobiles from teachers' perspective in Spain.