My comment in response to a 10/27 post in eSchoolNews, Survey: Mobile Learning At a Tipping Point:
Part of living now is learning to use phones appropriately and to put them away, whether you’re a child or adult. It’s healthier to consider them already part of our social selves and environments, and then develop and practice etiquette/a basic code of behavior.
As an iphone app developer I see iphone technology and design for it in its infancy. Apps are a relatively new medium, evolving as I write this. We parents and teachers develop educational tools, learn from each other, and develop more. As the technologies merge–phones, tvs, laptops, wiis, etc.–and they are merging now, everything changes. Mac apps are coming in Jan/Feb and iphone app developers are developing for the mac. The ipad and the mac are merging. I haven’t even looked at Apple TV. Phones, laptops, tvs will be simply at different scales, used for different purposes–information, production, social viewing/playing.
No wonder teachers are overwhelmed. It’s a whole new, continually evolving world. It’s easier to just say no until it’s all sorted out. But the problem is that it may never be sorted out.
We’ve moved into a culture that requires continual design of everything–our tech, our relationships to our tech and to each other.
The design curriculum is under development, and qualifications for expertise are questionable. It’s all in flux.
I like it. 
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