Bring your own technology If ever there was an idea whose time has come, it is surely Bring Your Own Device or, to be less restrictive, Bring Your Own Technology. There are at least two comp0elling reasons for this. Girl with her phoneFrom a financial point of view, if students are allowed to bring their own technology it should save the school money. A cynical view would be that the school is shifting the expense from itself to its parents. But a narrow cynical view doesn't tell the whole story. Another benefit is teacher and student satisfaction. There are other potential benefits too, such as being able to achieve a one-to-one computer-pupil ratio more cheaply, quickly and easily than by purchasing lots of devices for students to use. There are downsides too, of course. Have any of you made any moves on the implementation of a ‘bring your own technology’ (BYOT) – or what is also referred to as a BYO/BYOC/BYOD or student owned devices - model or are in the throes of contemplating such an introduction?
BYOD in Education: An Emerging and Irreversible Trend Family & Parenting, School & Education, Local News By Vickie Moller Published: June 04 2013 The topic of BYOD-Bring Your Own Device is gaining momentum--educators simply cannot ignore it. The topic of BYOD-Bring Your Own Device is gaining momentum—educators simply cannot ignore it. Last year, at the Long Island Tech Summit, members of the educational technology team of the New York Comprehensive Center said the implementation of BYOD programs has become a highly polarized subject in the educational community but that based on the success of early adopters of BYOD programs, it is likely that more will be implemented in the near future. “Education must move with the times. “BYOD-Bring Your Own Device, is a trend that is catching on quickly. Researchers have found that 81 percent of Generation Y connects wirelessly and 73 percent of them use social networking to connect with others—and educators can use these facts to their advantage. The reasons to implement BYOD are compelling.
How to Make Your BYOD Program Successful A “bring your own device” (BYOD) initiative isn’t a panacea. Kari Rhame Murphy, chief technology officer for the Deer Park (Texas) Independent School District, says her district’s transition to BYOD was surprisingly easy, but only because she and her team spent nearly two years planning for it. To help ensure success, school leaders should consider some of the following best practices. Seek buy-in. At present, most schools ban personal devices. Therefore, getting stakeholders to reverse course and welcome them into the learning environment can be difficult. Explain the network and security safeguards, detail the financial and pedagogical benefits that BYOD-friendly schools have experienced, and show the concept in action by taking stakeholders to visit these early adopters. Rich Kaestner, a project director for the Consortium for School Networking, advises starting slowly. Develop a “Responsible Use” policy. Train your teachers. Educate parents. Facilitate, but don’t support.
BYOD: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly “BYOD” Bring Your own Device. A great idea that can easily turn messy. Biztech has introduced the BYOD: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly infographic asking you to answer 6 easy but important questions before you launch into a BYOD situation. If your company is considering allowing employees to bring their own devices to work, make sure you have a game plan in place.BYOD has freed up many enterprises from the responsibility of exclusively purchasing and maintaining computing devices, such as notebooks, tablets and smartphones, but companies still need to have policies set in place to make things work.BizTech magazine has put together an infographic that highlights six core questions every company should consider before moving forward with BYOD:Who buys the devices?What’s the right policy? The organization in this design is really well done. One of the data visualizations is hard for the readers to understand. Thanks to Ricky for sending in the link!
What You Need to Know About BYOD Few topics are generating more buzz in K–12 planning meetings this spring than the “bring your own device” movement. Teachers and administrators hunger to unleash the educational potential of mobile computing in their classrooms. But shrinking budgets and hard financial choices have kept schools from making the kinds of wholesale investments needed to put a device in the hands of every student. That reality, though not ideal, has forced educators to consider another possibility: Why not let students use devices they already own as learning tools? But there’s a catch: Allowing students to bring their own mobile hardware into classrooms creates a potential nightmare for IT administrators. Not sure which way to go? Six Steps to BYOD Success.More than 900 middle and high school students in Edina, Minn., bring their own personal devices to school. Want to Learn More? Thursday, May 3, at 2 p.m. What They’re Saying Check out these videos of K–12 experts discussing the benefits of BYOD.
The 5 Important Elements of The 21st Century Classroom Technology is radically transforming the way education is delivered and part of this transformation is taking place right inside our classrooms. From the ancient one-room school to the 20th century classroom where we have been taught, the classroom, as a pedagogical concept, has never witnessed such a transformational revolution as is the case now with the uptake of digital technology.And guess what this is only the beginning. The pace with which technology is developing makes it really impossible for anyone to predict what kind of classrooms we will have in the next few decades. This excellent graphic below sheds more light on how classrooms have been transformed by technology and draws clear comparisons between several learning modes. Source: onlineuniversities.com
BYOD – Worst Idea of the 21st Century? In 1990, I began helping schools across the globe realize the transformational learning potential of a laptop for every child. From the start there was a recognition of the certain inevitability that every student would own their a personal mobile personal computer in the near future, whether school provided it or not. Twenty-one years later, way too few students have a personal computer and the very issue seems to become more controversial with each passing day. Schools and school districts who have come to the personal computing party decades late now have conjured a cheap less-empowering way to produce an illusion of modernity. BYOD enshrines inequity The only way to guarantee equitable educational experiences is for each student to have access to the same materials and learning opportunities. Real people don’t want a device What was the last time you walked into a Best Buy or Apple Store and asked the clerk, “I’d like to buy a device please?”
21st Century Icebreakers: 11 Ways To Get To Know Your Students with Technology In honor of the start of a new school year, I am sharing one of my popular posts again with you with a couple of new additions! On Monday I will begin my new job. As I’ve mentioned before, I will be working as a Technology Resource Specialist as well as teaching a couple of classes. As always, I am nervous and excited for the first day of school, and eager to meet a new group of students. As an educator, I often find myself repeating the same icebreakers each year, trying to quickly get to know my students through “Two Truths and a Lie” or a “Getting To Know You” fact sheet. In an effort to bring my own classroom to the present, I’ve put together a list of 13 icebreakers that use technology and fit with 21st century students: Have students create a Pinterest board with 10 pins that summarizes them.Ask students to create a 30 second podcast that introduces themselves. Have any other 21st century icebreakers? Like this: Like Loading...
61 Educational Apps For The 21st Century Student It’s not entirely clear what it means to be a “21st century student.” And in 2013, it’s also not entirely clear what the definition of an “educational app” might be. Just as students are no longer tethered to textbooks (in most formal education settings), apps that are strictly didactic–designed to promote academic proficiency and foundational fluency–are often the first that parents and teachers reach for when looking for something “constructive.” But the reality is, the 21st century is as much about finding, evaluating, managing, sharing, and curating information as it is reading texts, answering questions, and applying memorized formulas to neatly scaffolded problems. So, critical thinking and transfer over accuracy and recall. In that context, what are often thought of as “productivity apps” are not only “educational,” but are often the real marrow of 21st century learning. Which is probably not a coincidence, and what makes the following list by Michael Hyatt useful.
A Diagram Of 21st Century Pedagogy - The modern learner has to sift through a lot of information. That means higher level thinking skills like analysis and evaluation are necessary just to reduce all the noise and establish the credibility of information. There is also the matter of utility. Evaluating information depends as much on context and circumstance as it does the nature of the data itself. The essay full of fluff may distill quite nicely down to a 140 character tweet. Context matters, and the diagram from edorigami below captures this, though not from the perspective of the student and content knowledge, but the teacher and various pedagogical components themselves, including Higher-Order Thinking Skills, Peer Collaboration, and Media Fluency. (See also our framework on the 6 channels of 21st century Learning.)