Having access to research resources in your pocket can be a good thing for in class assignments. I haven't been in school for 10 years, but given the right curriculum and teachers, cell phone use in classrooms can be beneficial. My history classes were less about memorizing dates and more about understanding how historical events impacted the world and led to other events, like the direct line that can be drawn between WWII, the cold War, and modern conflicts.
But you need proper oversight and instruction to ensure it's relevant use.
Pretty sure they're implying that the region west of the 13 colonies was called the Midwest, not that Ohio was considered the Midwest because it was one of the original colonies...