NEW YORK – Children are sometimes more comfortable with technology than the grown-ups in a school. Are we holding students back by not letting them use their own devices or some websites as they see fit?

Where to draw the line on using smartphones or sites like Google and YouTube was a topic at my recent conference on digital learning, which wrapped up with a day of sessions with educators at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.

But I remembered an issue a few weeks back with the Bay City Education Association's contract. It was in the news for provisions spelling out discipline for teachers caught drunk or using drugs on the job.

But reading further, I found this passage:

A school leader told me it’s not uncommon to see similar provisions in contracts across the country.

RELATED: Read the Bay City contract

It's such a big concern that the union negotiated to have it in the contract. Why would teachers not want students to record a lesson to help with studying later? What are they being protected from? And why not allow students to take advantage of an opportunity to use a device that can help them learn?

Godfrey-Lee Superintendent David Britten is a visionary when it comes to technology in schools, and has no problem with students using their own smartphones in class.

On a day I visited, students snapped photos of notes written on white boards, saying it helped to have a visual study aid in addition to whatever they wrote in their notebooks.

Britten said it’s often true that students are carrying around in their pockets devices that can do far more than whatever devices a school gives them. Yet, more often than not, students are told the devices will be confiscated if used in class.

"Part of our job is to teach students to use technology responsibly," he told me in 2010. "If a student writes something inappropriate, you don't take away his pencil. You teach them about consequences."

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The discussion continued at the conference with the teachers who work with the blended learning programs.

Students at Merit Prep Academy are not allowed to use Google, for fear that they’ll quickly look up answers for assignments, especially for math programs.

But teacher Tiffany MacAfee said there are moments when educators wonder if that’s the right idea, She told of one student who was caught on the Google site. When MacAfee asked what she was looking at, the student said the word “polio” was in an assignment and she didn’t know what it meant.

MacAfee said the student was using the search engine exactly the way it is intended to be used, as a resource.

Maybe, the educators said, it would be better to not assume that the students will use the technology for mischief, but as useful tools that they are very comfortable using.

“If I was going to worry about one kid who is going to get on Google and (have us) not do anything with the learning technology, that would be a tremendous failure on our part,” Merit founder Ben Rayer said. “We want to be sure that we are open to things.”

Rayer said he might not be able to imagine what his tech-friendly teachers and students can do “if we just be open to it. Right now we are so closed off, that if we open it up, I don’t know if we can even imagine what they can do, including building their own apps to demonstrate their mastery.”

It was easy to get the details from the discussion with the Merit teachers and students -- I recorded the interviews with my iPhone.

Email Dave Murray at dmurray@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter @ReporterDMurray or on Facebook.