Cellphones in the classroom

Through my experiences observaing high school classrooms the use of personal phones for instruction is a tricky subject. Currently, i notice many students hiding cell phones behind bags/under desks to text and search the internet. it has become a problem for many classrooms across the nation. In the future, I do not plan to rely on cell phones in my lesson but if i were compelled to do so i would attempt to use it as a survey/pre-knowledge activity. I would plan to measure students knowledge of a subject by asking open ended questions and providing answers that students would text and i would monitor results. this would allow me to gauge where the students stand and give me a better idea of where to proceed in the lessons. Another idea i had would be to use it as a way to monitor class attendance/participation. each class i would have a question to answer through text messaging. this would allow me to know who is in class without wasting classtime on attendance. In addition, it will be a way to assess class involvement by gauging how many questions they responded to or missed.