Phone Policy

[waffle_dynasty]

Our shop is in an area with no cell phone service so this isn't really a problem

[mathking]

Our students are supposed to be working when they have work to do. So if they are distracted (whether they are on a cell phone or some other form of distraction) someone will talk to them. Often it just takes one comment from a student team leader. Sometimes one of the mentors. That said, we rarely have a build session in which there is no down time for anyone. It is often the case that two groups are working on parts of a larger system, and one group finishes first. If a student is checking email, replying to a text, posting to Instagram or looking at Facebook while they wait for something else to be completed I treat them the same way I would want my employer to treat me if I were posting to ChiefDelphi while I am in a planning period avoiding a mountain of grading.

I am from a generation well before cell phones. So I have had something of an aversion to their ubiquity (not that everyone has them but that so many people use them all the time). But I am also a trained statistician who has about 45 semester hours of history classes. So I know that every generation sees the apocalypse and the end of civilization as we know it in things the current generation does. (Witness the vast legions of teachers and others who insist that students have lost the ability to write because of social media, texting and the internet. In spite of the evidence that students today are better writers on the average than students 20, 30 or 40 years ago.) There have been many times when a cell phone picture or the timely finding of a YouTube video or set of instructions on a cell phone has jumped our robot building forward. So I try to focus on behaviors that aren't good, like not paying attention while in the shop, rather than a blanket assumption that a student on a cell phone at a meeting is a bad thing.

[Mark McLeod]

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

I am stuck tethered to my phone for my job.

Would sure be a shame if you missed a phone call.

-------------

125 doesn't have a phone policy. I think its a bit outrageous to require students to turn over their phones for an optional, after school activity that inspires and recognizes the use of technology.

We use the mobile app for slack for team communication. Requiring students to turn over phones would inhibit us from communicating effectively.

Maybe instead of taking technology away from these inspired students, education on proper and professional use would be more beneficial for them?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by bkahl

We use the mobile app for slack for team communication. Requiring students to turn over phones would inhibit us from communicating effectively.

I just have to ask... how does having students off their phones while at a team meeting inhibit you from communicating effectively? Can't you just say "hey everyone, listen up! I have some effective communications you need to hear!" I honestly don't know how cell phones improve communication among people that are co-located.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I just have to ask... how does having students off their phones while at a team meeting inhibit you from communicating effectively? Can't you just say "hey everyone, listen up! I have some effective communications you need to hear!" I honestly don't know how cell phones improve communication among people that are co-located.

If people have push notifications, it can be easier to call someone from the shop across the hall (or farther?) into a computer lab for a question etc, than have to walk over yourself or send a runner. We started using Slack last year and it is great for stuff like that (but really shines at competition)

[Libby K]

Totally agree that a 'phone jail' only makes things worse in a lot of cases. Our set of policies took a few years to really settle into, but at this point our students see it as a part of the deal while being on the team - and respect that putting your phone away and engaging with the team is what's asked of them as a 1923 student.

During meetings: When the whole team is together, with a handful of leaders or mentors addressing them - we have two rules. No cell phone use, and no side conversations. Our team is big (120+ this year) and if we're trying to get a piece of information to the whole room, it's probably because it needs to be heard. It's a respect thing, but it's also an efficiency thing.

If it's something small, like one kid playing a game on their phone off to the side, one of the mentors or leaders will walk over to them and remind them of the rule. If it's something big and disruptive, like 6 kids talking in the back amongst themselves, we end up having to do the classic "I'll wait" teacher move...

In our shop: Same basic idea - if we're having a group discussion on something, the phones need to be away. If their parents call them, then go ahead and step away, take the call as needed - but don't let it be a distraction. The students use their phones to contribute to their engineering notebook, so it would be silly to take them away entirely. If we see them totally disengaging from their build time and spending it on facebook, instagram, snapchat, texting their buddies - then we remind them they're here to work. They can scroll social media when they're waiting for their ride home.

During any down time, they're on their phones. Sometimes, so am I! It's just the nature of using the device for communication, entertainment, and managing your life.

On trips, they are welcome to use their phones for the bus ride, in the hotel, and most importantly - communicating with their family! - but when they're in the stands during ceremonies or while scouting, we make sure the phones are away unless absolutely necessary. That's the big one for us - show us that you want to be there! If you didn't come to the competition to be a part of the competition, why did you take up a seat on the bus?

TL;DR We don't do phone jail, but expect our students have their phones away during important discussions, while working on the robot, scouting, or out of respect for an event's ceremonies.

[bkahl]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I just have to ask... how does having students off their phones while at a team meeting inhibit you from communicating effectively? Can't you just say "hey everyone, listen up! I have some effective communications you need to hear!" I honestly don't know how cell phones improve communication among people that are co-located.

We operate off Northeastern's College campus in a pretty small lab.

With somewhere between 80-100 students and mentors, we can't all fit in the build space and lab. Thus, every sub-team breaks up into separate class rooms, sometimes spread out over the campus. Effective communication between these groups relies upon Slack, and thus our mobile devices, may it be a phone or laptop.

[Rick]

78 requires both students and mentors to store phones while in our shop for safety and productivity reasons. We have a designated area to use phones if needed.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by bkahl

Would sure be a shame if you missed a phone call.

Literally.
Do you know what servers and security I am monitoring?

Let's start with 2 stock exchanges and keep going...
I get the 'fun' of cleaning up other people's crisis for a living.

At one point the security of 14 huge banks depended on my checking my phone often.

Now frankly, I could just put it down, and I do when operating machines.
However staying out of touch for many hours at a time is a very bad idea.

Yes this includes sleep - if my phone goes off in the middle of the night I basically need to check it.

It's gotten better since I moved up the leadership ladder.
Now my jobs are less operational - still I have an obligation to know that I need to check on my crew.

Good news is trading hours are not usually FIRST hours.
Bad news is that security breach attempts are designed to target patterns where you are not going to respond.

Does it annoy me? Yes it's quite annoying at times.
I often have to pull over just to deal with my phone and minimize my train rides underground.

This is why I've never been a CSA/FTAA too far from my current access to computing resources.

[frcguy]

Originally Posted by bkahl

Maybe instead of taking technology away from these inspired students, education on proper and professional use would be more beneficial for them?

+1

[Cothron Theiss]

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Mark McLeod again.

In all seriousness, I think that many teams work in separate locations on a pretty regular basis. My team used to work out of one teacher's closet and the closet of the wood shop on the other side of campus. I wish we had used our phones a lot more so we had retained better communication. Now we at least keep everyone within shouting distance. However, we often have subteams run to a local McDonalds to use their WiFi, since we don't have access to the WiFi at the school we work at.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

Literally.
Do you know what servers and security I am monitoring?

Let's start with 2 stock exchanges and keep going...
I get the 'fun' of cleaning up other people's crisis for a living.

At one point the security of 14 huge banks depended on my checking my phone often.

Now frankly, I could just put it down, and I do when operating machines.
However staying out of touch for many hours at a time is a very bad idea.

Yes this includes sleep - if my phone goes off in the middle of the night I basically need to check it.

It's gotten better since I moved up the leadership ladder.
Now my jobs are less operational - still I have an obligation to know that I need to check on my crew.

Good news is trading hours are not usually FIRST hours.
Bad news is that security breach attempts are designed to target patterns where you are not going to respond.

Does it annoy me? Yes it's quite annoying at times.
I often have to pull over just to deal with my phone and minimize my train rides underground.

This is why I've never been a CSA/FTAA too far from my current access to computing resources.

Seems like a pretty bad system if it relies on one person to have cellular connectivity. Seems that having multiple folks with that responsibility would be better if it really is as important as you claim.

[kyle_hamblett]

While we don't have any specific rules about phone usage, there is kind of an unspoken rule about them. If they're being used to be productive, then by all means it is allowed. I know I have found myself looking things up on VexPro more than once. However, if it is becoming a distraction and an individual is say texting or playing games, they will be talked to. In the shop, it has gotten to the point where we do have a place for phones if they become too much of a distraction.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Seems like a pretty bad system if it relies on one person to have cellular connectivity. Seems that having multiple folks with that responsibility would be better if it really is as important as you claim.

Originally Posted by TechHelpBB

Now frankly, I could just put it down, and I do when operating machines.
However staying out of touch for many hours at a time is a very bad idea.
...
It's gotten better since I moved up the leadership ladder.
Now my jobs are less operational - still I have an obligation to know that I need to check on my crew.

Thanks for your concern.
That's a quote from my original post.

You know what it takes to start a financial services company?
A lot of money so early in my career there were often sub-optimal staff for this duty.
It was compensated for with automation.
I wrote a lot of that automation with REST/SOAP, Bash/Ksh, Perl, Python, Ruby and even some VBA for reporting.

Would you seriously suggest I leave a script unattended merely to avoid my inconvenience?
Would you chance leaving your team's FRC robot running unattended and fully autonomous during a match?
Would you bet your retirement on a script that could be fingerprinted or fail to account for the nuances of a security issue?

Even if you answer yes to any of those queries I am afraid that you would be the minority.
People expect their money to stay where they put it and their financial transactions to operate as intended.

If there was an irregularity at my former position federal agencies took notice fairly quickly.
My obligation was stop anything that would cause anyone else to have to act.

I would say those automation skills served me very well considering it would now be considered: SecOps/DevOps
My work in that environment made it possible for us to achieve ISO27001 security certification with a very small number of issues to remediate.
So basically what this translates to is that our security was considered actually very good by some of the highest industry standards.