The most available way to call for help

In media accounts of crises that occur in schools, usually there is a line or two something like this:

In calls to 911, students described Mr. Coon as 5 foot 5, white and “kind of chubby.”

The above line is from the New York Times article today about the school shooting yesterday in Cleveland. The report also includes this description of the scene at the school:

Mychael said she darted down a flight of stairs before hiding with five other students in a classroom on the third floor. After several minutes, the group, sobbing, decided to sprint down the rest of the stairs, she said.

Looking at these reports from a school safety perspective in the 21st century, we can be sure that the kids who called 911 did not go to a phone booth or use a landline at all. The most immediate way to share information electronically within and from a school today is by using the phones that staff, teachers and students carry. Using this new way to effect safety can both prevent trouble and protect young people and those responsible for their care.

Handheld Learning — Handheld Safety

This week in London, several hundred people are gathered for the Third Annual HandheldLearning conference. After last year’s conference, John Galloway of The Guardian reported:

“the key element in London’s recent Handheld Learning conference was not the tools but the ethos behind them. It covered more than one technology - in fact anything you can easily carry, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), iPods, tablet PCs, mobile phones, and even games consoles. These are not new technologies, and the speakers weren’t saying anything they hadn’t said several times before. However, it seems the message - that these devices can fundamentally change learning - is beginning to be heard more widely.”

While possibilities and techniques for handheld learning are being explored now and in the months and years that lie ahead, Defywire is pioneering in parallel to develop a powerful potential for what could be called handheld safety.

The concluding observation can easily be paraphrased from The Guardian: Handheld safety is based on the fact that these devices can fundamentally change safety — which is something that is beginning to be heard more widely.

A fundamental reason the devices can make changes toward greater safety is that teachers and administrators can use the mobile phones that they routinely have with them to receive and send safety information more quickly and effectively than through any previous system.

Mobiles given to British police for efficiency

Britain’s new Prime Minister Gordon Brown thinks providing “handheld computers” to police is so important that he has mentioned them twice in major statements. A report in silicon.com explains:

Andrew Watson, chief information officer for the British Transport Police, said in a statement: “The use of mobile technology eliminates a massive administration burden from police officers, releasing them to concentrate on the job they are trained to do. Furthermore, it ensures that information is up-to-date and accurate.”

Instead of a British policemen having to spend the rest of the day in an office doing paperwork after making an arrest, he or she can send the information from the scene. That principle makes the officer more effective in fighting crime by freeing up wasted time.
Officer Watson’s statement also applies importantly to how mobile devices, more commonly called cell phones in the US, can empower school teachers and staff in keeping students safe. When teachers and staff are able to access information about students through the mobile devices they carry, that information is available, up-to-date and accurate.

The reverse of what takes place in the police example happens for school safety: crucial location and health information can come from the office directly into a mobile at the scene where a teacher or staff person is helping a student. A growing accumulation of experience in various areas of public and personal safety is showing that safety is more assured when the responsible person is carrying a mobile computer.