First time I saw a student typing an essay on a phone, I thought it was an idiosyncrasy or lassitude, but by the end of the semester I realized it was a resource problem. Worked 2 jobs and had a 7-yr-old hand me down laptop which couldn't hold a charge. insidehighered.com/blogs/confessi…
I didn't learn the whole truth until the end of the semester when the student asked if they could be excused from turning in a hard copy of an essay because they'd run out of free printing at the library. Only then did I clue in to the juggling this student was attempting to do.
It was a good lesson in the problems of imposing my experience and world view on a student. I saw phones as largely frivolous, a toy, and for sure inferior to the laptop/external monitor setup I worked from, but my sweet setup wasn't a possibility for this student.
When we make the stuff that makes school easier and more productive ((money, time, etc...) so scarce, the least I can do is not punish a student for making use of the tools available to them. @deandad's piece at the top of the thread is right on target.
