This was written as my comment to La Vie en BYOD, a blog post written by my classmate Justin Mark:
At the school I teach at students have always been allowed to bring their own device. WiFi was in place, but we had to wait for what seemed quite sometime, to get the okay to allow students to access it. Students had access to desktop work stations in each of our five shared classrooms and the student lounge. But, for adult students in particular, it was frustrating that they could not access WiFi on their own devices, especially those who were Mac users. Part of the reasoning around no access was related to bandwidth and setting up district wide access protocol.
I have seen over the years more and more students bringing their own devices, whether this is a laptop, smartphone and more recently tablets. At the middle school level, where students attend for tutorials up to three days a week, students are welcome to BYOD if they are using them as an aid to their learning. The expectation is laid from the start and if the device becomes a distraction issue they are asked to put it away or give it to the teacher to hold on to. I have found this year that the ones who are most often asking to bring their own laptops are those who deal with anxiety. The comfort of using their own computer reduces their school related anxiety.
The blended BYOD program sounds like a good idea, those students who have the devices and wish to bring them to school do and all others have access to ones at school. I have one concern. I can see that some schools will have a large number of students who can bring their own device and thus not have to purchase many, whereas other schools may have few that can BYOD and thus have to look at purchasing many, which might not be feasible. It once again comes back to, how do we make sure that all students have equal and equitable access? How do we work to reduce the digital divide?
The lack of access to devices relates to one area of our critical challenge question, “What are the barriers you might face in implementing a technology integration”. One cannot look at implementing a technology integration if the school they work at does not have the technology available for students. One teacher in our cohort has dealt with this barrier by bringing in her own devices for students to use. Others have been able to use their individual technology funds to purchase devices. I for one do not receive a technology fund and I am not wishing to bring in my own devices. If the ministry of education wishes students to have access to technology then they need to come forth with the money so our districts are able to fund this.
Thanks for this thought provoking post Justin!
At the school I teach at students have always been allowed to bring their own device. WiFi was in place, but we had to wait for what seemed quite sometime, to get the okay to allow students to access it. Students had access to desktop work stations in each of our five shared classrooms and the student lounge. But, for adult students in particular, it was frustrating that they could not access WiFi on their own devices, especially those who were Mac users. Part of the reasoning around no access was related to bandwidth and setting up district wide access protocol.
I have seen over the years more and more students bringing their own devices, whether this is a laptop, smartphone and more recently tablets. At the middle school level, where students attend for tutorials up to three days a week, students are welcome to BYOD if they are using them as an aid to their learning. The expectation is laid from the start and if the device becomes a distraction issue they are asked to put it away or give it to the teacher to hold on to. I have found this year that the ones who are most often asking to bring their own laptops are those who deal with anxiety. The comfort of using their own computer reduces their school related anxiety.
The blended BYOD program sounds like a good idea, those students who have the devices and wish to bring them to school do and all others have access to ones at school. I have one concern. I can see that some schools will have a large number of students who can bring their own device and thus not have to purchase many, whereas other schools may have few that can BYOD and thus have to look at purchasing many, which might not be feasible. It once again comes back to, how do we make sure that all students have equal and equitable access? How do we work to reduce the digital divide?
The lack of access to devices relates to one area of our critical challenge question, “What are the barriers you might face in implementing a technology integration”. One cannot look at implementing a technology integration if the school they work at does not have the technology available for students. One teacher in our cohort has dealt with this barrier by bringing in her own devices for students to use. Others have been able to use their individual technology funds to purchase devices. I for one do not receive a technology fund and I am not wishing to bring in my own devices. If the ministry of education wishes students to have access to technology then they need to come forth with the money so our districts are able to fund this.
Thanks for this thought provoking post Justin!