We think school should be preparing students for real life—and in real life, people use cell phones," says Nielsen, who authors the blog The Innovative Educator. "If you're making an artificial world inside the school, you're not preparing them for the real world."
New York City's cell phone ban persists—a spokesman for Bloomberg told the New York Daily News in July that the devices have no place in schools. "Mobile devices are major distractions that prevent all the other students in the classroom from learning," the spokesman said.