BYOD

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Privacy, Equity, and other BYOD Concerns

September 12, 2012 | 11:32 AM | By

Erin Scott

As the Bring Your Own Device movement continues to gain momentum, allowing students to use their own devices (mobile phones, laptops, tablets) in school, administrators and educators are figuring out how to iron out concerns and issues that crop up.

One of the biggest issues educators continually bring up is equity.

“Especially at the middle school level, not having a device and needing to find a classmate to share with results in further issues (selfishness, resentment, etc.),” writes Kevin, a commenter to a recent post about Katy School District’s BYOD program. “If so, how are these issues dealt with and turned into instructional situations?”

But proponents of BYOD contend that students who have devices should not be prohibited from using them as a solution to the equity issue. Education blogger Lisa Nielsen gives the following example of a school district in Forsyth County, Georgia.

“The BYOD environment is fluid and policies should be as well.”

“Tim Clark, district instructional technology specialist with Forsyth County Schools (GA), explains that in his experience with BYOD, ‘Students who do not have personal technology devices have greater access to school-owned technology tools when students who bring their own devices to school are no longer competing for that access,’” Nielsen writes.

Another set of concerns, according to a CoSN report, are around potential safety and security risks. One prevailing question, for example: Who’s responsible for theft or damage to students’ devices? Different districts deal with the issue in different ways. While some educators say kids Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Research, Teaching With Tech, BYOD, CoSN

How to Launch a Successful BYOD Program

September 5, 2012 | 11:03 AM | By

Erin Scott

By Katrina Schwartz

As more schools start to integrate their own mobile learning strategies and Bring Your Own Device policies, one school district in a suburb of Houston has managed to come up with what appears to be a successful BYOD program.

Katy Independent School District (ISD) has a student population of 63,000 students and 56 schools – elementary, middle and high schools. There are 83 languages spoken by students in the district and 31 percent of the student population is on free or reduced lunch programs.

In 2009, Katy began a three-year plan to change instruction in the school district by promoting a standardized toolbox of web-based tools dubbed “Web 2.0.” They also set out guidelines for behavior in the digital space called “Digital Citizenship,” in the hopes that the school would not just teach kids math and reading, but also how to behave in a public digital world.

“Part of this education we’ve going through for the past three years is helping our teachers to understand when it’s appropriate to use this and when it’s not.”

But first, the school district needed to understand the ins and outs of mobile learning. Lenny Schad, the Chief Information Officer for the district led the effort who has become the go-to guy for educators looking to implement their own mobile learning strategy has one primary piece of advice: Mobile learning is a holistic educational plan, not just introducing technology into existing structures.

“Mobile learning is all about changing instruction. Because if the instruction doesn’t change, allowing the kids to bring their own device will do nothing,” he explained in a recent EdWeb Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, BYOD, Katy Independent School District, Mobile Learning

In Some Cash-Strapped Schools, Kids Bring Their Own Tech Devices

February 3, 2012 | 10:07 AM | By

Flickr: Santoso

Students are encouraged to bring their own tech devices to school and use them in class.

By Jennifer Roland

At Mankato Public School System in Minnesota, students bring their homework, their lunches, and books to school like most students across the country. But they also bring whatever tech devices they own — and they don’t have to hide it or turn it off when they walk into class.

Mankato has joined the growing Bring Your Own Technology movement that allows students to use their own Netbooks, laptops, and tablets — anything that connects to the school’s wireless network — during class time.

“By allowing kids to bring in their own devices, you free up school resources for the kids who don’t have access,” says Doug Johnson, director of media and technology for the Mankato Public School System. (Johnson wrote the book — literally — on the subject; The Classroom Teacher’s Technology Survival Guide is published this month.) For example, in classrooms that have a group of four computers, finding time for all 30 students to use them can be challenging. In Mankato, 90% of the students have some sort of wireless-capable device, which leaves only eight students in a typical class who will need to use the class computers.

This kind of unconventional approach to schooling, in a public school system that’s tangled with strict rules and regulations, was one of the tactics being hailed this week when President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke about the importance of bringing schools to the 21st century by finding smart ways to integrate technology into the learning process at the inaugural Digital Learning Day.

The common theme from parents: “If I spend $500 on an iPad for my kid, I hope the teachers uses it!”

For schools that are lucky enough to have the money to carry out this mission — whether it’s providing a computer lab, laptops and tablets for students — the rewards of the technology are abundant. But the fiscal reality makes this difficult for most public schools that struggle with dwindling budgets and can’t afford to hire enough teachers, let alone computers.

That’s why school districts like Mankato are experimenting with what could be a very obvious solution: Let kids bring their own tech devices to school. Truth is, at last count (in 2010) more than 75 percent of American kids age 12 to 17 owned cell phones, according to a Pew Research study. And 19 percent of Americans now own a tablet. So it’s no surprise that the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) movement is taking shape across the country with school districts that allow students to use their tablets, smart phones, and other mobile computing devices in the classroom for learning.

Conceptually, that makes a lot of sense. Why not let kids use the tech tools they’re already familiar with to enhance their learning? But as schools try to figure out the best way of transitioning to this Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, bring your own device, BYOD

To Ban or Not to Ban: Schools Weigh Cell Phone Policies

August 22, 2011 | 11:16 AM | By

Flickr:From_Ko

Last week, a  study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that cellphones have become “near ubiquitous”: 83% of American adults own one. Over half of all adult mobile phone owners had used their phones at least once to get information they needed right away. And more than a quarter said that they had experienced a situation in the previous month in which they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phones at hand.

The findings of this Pew research — the reliance of adults on their cellphones — stands in sharp contrast to the policies of many schools, where cellphones remained banned or restricted. Students likely have these same needs as adults: to get online and find information they need right away. But often students are banned from using their cell phones in schools, something that students themselves list as one of the greatest obstacles they face in using technology in the classroom.

Students are “asked to do research on a desktop computer that absolutely has less processing power than the computer in their pocket.”

For many schools, these are formal rules, written in school policy or in student handbooks. But as phones become like more extended appendages in everyone’s lives, schools are rethinking their policies. MindShift asked teachers how or whether these rules were changing and received some interesting feedback.

Educator Nilda Vargas reported that students can use cell phones to access their online books, while teacher Shekema Silveri replied that although she requires cell phone usage in her class, the school policy against it hasn’t changed. “Most teachers are still afraid of cell phones in the classroom because they know little about how to use them as a tool for learning,” she wrote on MindShift’s Facebook page. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Teaching With Tech, bring your own device, cell phone policy, mobile, Mobile Learning