In less than an hour, the Mary Passage Middle School students worked their way through more than 70 questions for a semester exam review, with every eighth-grader participating in a drill that looked more like a game show than a quiz.
"They only get one crack at it so they have to make sure they are right," said Neeley.
Cell phones, considered a nuisance or worse in many schools, are welcome at Passage. At least eight teachers are using them for a range of lessons, from reports to quizzes in English, social studies, science and math classes.
Principal Kipp Rogers is the man behind the move. Rogers teaches a math class in addition to his administration duties.
Last year the school ran out of calculators needed for a math exam, so he let a student use the calculator function on his cell phone. The student was excited to use a phone instead of a calculator. He found 19 of his 22 students had phones, a finding that squared with a 2008 Harris Interactive research study reporting four out of five teenagers carry cell phones.
But Rogers was aware of the potential for trouble, from students sending messages to each other during class to cheating or taking inappropriate photos and sharing them, an activity known as "sexting."
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