Candace, The use of cell phones has slowly creeped into our world. They are a big distration and should be left out of the classroom. Most of my faculty follow these practical steps. They provide guidelines about cell phone use in their syllabus and verbally discuss them on day one. We discuss it at orientation before the student even begins. Cell phone on a person has to be set on vibrate or silent mode during class and absoulutely cannot be used in class. Cell phones are collected during testing periods. If a student leaves the classroom "to take an emergency call", they ask permission to step out. Abuse or not following the pre-established guidelines can result in point deductions that affect the final grade. It's not a perfect system but addressing it these ways at least minimizes the distractions. Barry Westling