BYOD
Bring Your Own Device to School
The Pros...
- students are familiar with the device
- schools save money on technology
- opportunity for personalized learning
- technology is engaging so students stay on task
The Cons.....
- parents may not be in favor of funding a device for use in school
- students may forget to charge their device
- students may forget their device at home
- apps may work differently on different devices
- There might be some competitiveness among students because some devices might be better or more expensive than others
- "What if a student brings a virus from home onto the school wireless network?" (Wainwright, 2015) This one made me laugh...I guess they need to keep their device home until they are virus free for 24 hours.
I work with students grades k-8. I feel that students in 5th grade and older would be old enough to be responsible for BYOD to school. They will be motivated to keep their device ready to use and won't want to miss out on using it. I do wonder how long this would last though.
There would have to be enough bandwidth to support all of these different devices, in addition to an IT department that could handle any issues.
I feel as if the best devices to be brought to school would be an iPad or tablet type devices. I think to meet the requirements for most activities to be done in a classroom a minimum/maximum size screen would be needed. I think a mobile/cell phone just does not have to screen size needed.
If there are is an abuse or violation of technology I feel that it would be handled like any other discipline issue at our school. Depending on what the situation was students would be given appropriate consequences whether it was a lunch detention, after-school detention, etc. The student would still be held accountable for the activity and it may be required that they complete the activity for homework with a parent signature required to let the parent know what the situation was.
The policies in place would be that students should only be using technology for school-related material. No social media, email, texts, etc will be tolerated during the school-day. If students do not bring their device to school there would also be a consequence for that. Any misuse will have a consequence so that students understand the importance of these rules and that the technology is important to the educational activities performed at school. They need to be prepared for school each day and being responsible for their technology (charged and brought to school) is imperative.
At the beginning of each year teachers will be given the rules of technology and the consequences for misuse by either themselves or their students. At Open House parents will be given a hard copy of the rules and consequences, as well as, the Principal will talk about them in his statements for the evening. Before school starts all parents and students will sign an Acceptable Use Policy so that everyone is aware of the rules and consequences. This must be signed before students BYOD to school. Any training that would be necessary would be done either by the Principal, Technology coordinator, and any other technology resource staff in the school.
Meru Networks. (2013). BYOD Best practices. 1-12. Retrieved from: http://www.merunetworks.com/collateral/white-papers/wp-byod-implementation-whitepaper-for-wlan-security.pdf.
Wainwright, A. (2015). 20 Pros and cons of implementing BYOD in schools. SecurEdge Networks. Retrieved from: http://www.securedgenetworks.com/strategy-blog/20-Pros-and-Cons-of-implementing-BYOD-in-schools
There would have to be enough bandwidth to support all of these different devices, in addition to an IT department that could handle any issues.
I feel as if the best devices to be brought to school would be an iPad or tablet type devices. I think to meet the requirements for most activities to be done in a classroom a minimum/maximum size screen would be needed. I think a mobile/cell phone just does not have to screen size needed.
If there are is an abuse or violation of technology I feel that it would be handled like any other discipline issue at our school. Depending on what the situation was students would be given appropriate consequences whether it was a lunch detention, after-school detention, etc. The student would still be held accountable for the activity and it may be required that they complete the activity for homework with a parent signature required to let the parent know what the situation was.
The policies in place would be that students should only be using technology for school-related material. No social media, email, texts, etc will be tolerated during the school-day. If students do not bring their device to school there would also be a consequence for that. Any misuse will have a consequence so that students understand the importance of these rules and that the technology is important to the educational activities performed at school. They need to be prepared for school each day and being responsible for their technology (charged and brought to school) is imperative.
At the beginning of each year teachers will be given the rules of technology and the consequences for misuse by either themselves or their students. At Open House parents will be given a hard copy of the rules and consequences, as well as, the Principal will talk about them in his statements for the evening. Before school starts all parents and students will sign an Acceptable Use Policy so that everyone is aware of the rules and consequences. This must be signed before students BYOD to school. Any training that would be necessary would be done either by the Principal, Technology coordinator, and any other technology resource staff in the school.
Meru Networks. (2013). BYOD Best practices. 1-12. Retrieved from: http://www.merunetworks.com/collateral/white-papers/wp-byod-implementation-whitepaper-for-wlan-security.pdf.
Wainwright, A. (2015). 20 Pros and cons of implementing BYOD in schools. SecurEdge Networks. Retrieved from: http://www.securedgenetworks.com/strategy-blog/20-Pros-and-Cons-of-implementing-BYOD-in-schools
Suzanne,
ReplyDeleteI truly enjoyed reading your blog post. As someone who also works in the elementary sector of education I also believe that BYOD programs would be successful with younger students. As you pointed out not only would using devices motivate them to learn, young students would take pride in being able to use their own device in school and as such take the responsibility seriously. I agree I do not know how long it would last though, as kids will be kids and the draw of sneaking in a game, or checking their Facebook may be to tempting to resist, after all I know a handful of teachers who cannot make it through the day with out violating the rules, whats to stop an eleven year old. This is where a strong and secure infrastructure would be needed, in combination with policies that clearly illustrate the rules of use. I think one sure way to prevent misuse is by requiring students to login to a school wifi account. My school's wifi has a strong fire wall which has blocked most of the social networking sites that elementary age students should not even have accounts on anyway, as well as popular gaming sites, which has seemed to keep the focus on learning topics. The con you mentioned about the computer viruses is a serious one that schools need to be aware of. Last year a teacher opened an email from another teacher on the schools network that contained a link to a learning website and a virus, the impact on the system was quite serious, I can only imagine what can be brought in on the hundreds of devices students use, as they tend to look at and open everything... I am glad you included it. The only part of your post that I do not 100% agree with is that if students forget their device their should be consequences... yes under a BYOD program the device becomes an important learning tool, however kids are humans and like their jackets, and homework, they may forget them from time to time. Instead of a punishment, I think a positive lesson would be to have students do research the old fashion way in books with paper and pencil, I am pretty sure after just one day, they would never forget their devices again... Just a thought..
Thanks for sharing
Terri