Reference Reviews

Doug’s Student Reference Room

Electronic Devices in Schools, edited by Jill Hamilton. 112 p. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2008. ISBN 13: 978-0-7377-3985-5. ISBN 10: 0-7377-3985-1. $33.70.

School librarians are frequently first adopters and ardent supporters of new technologies in education, but their enthusiasm is not always shared by school boards, adminstrators or even classroom teachers who may view the legal, ethical and practical implications of a new technology’s use as too onerous to tackle. Outright bans, on the other hand, limit educators’ ability to influence students’ use of a technology, so schools struggle with developing policies that promote sound ethical and educational uses while ensuring students’ safety. This volume, part of the Issues That Concern You series, addresses student use of several popular technologies, including cell phones, camera phones, iPods, laptops, portable digital assistants (PDA’s) and YouTube. Drawn largely from newspapers and online and print educational journals, the 16 essays probe the best arguments for and against allowing particular technologies on a school site. Each essay is accompanied by a color photo and either a chart or graph to support the main arguments. Attractive graphics add visual appeal and aid in navigating the text. Aimed at middle school or high school students, the essays are current and collectively present a full range of views about use of electronic devices in schools, so that teachers and administrators may find this volume useful as an introduction to policy discussions around this very difficult issue. Highly recommended for middle school and high school libraries.
—Doug Achterman