BYOD - Bring Your Own Device

Greetings!

I believe that we as educators need to be either on the cutting edge or at least aware of cutting edge practices. At the NCCE convention there was a lot of talk about BYOD – Bring Your Own Device. The rationale is that students are already using these anyway, so let’s put them to educational use. A Smartphone, an iPad, a net book, or personal computer can be a great educational tool, and our job is to educate students to use their devices as a learning tool rather than a texting or game tool.

BYOD has some positive elements.
1. Students already own them, so the school does not have to provide them.
2. Students are also responsible for any repairs or device problems that may happen. It is a personal device, not a school one.
3. Students know how to use it already.
4. It provides a 1:1 student to device ratio.

Of course, there will always be problems with students having devices. It is our job to teach students about internet safety and proper use of the internet. One presenter gave the following ‘proverb’ to us. “Filter a website and you protect a student for a day. Educate students about online safety and you will protect children for a lifetime.”

Now I certainly believe we need to filter our computers at school. But along with filtering the internet, we also need to educate students about internet safety, cyber bullying, and being safe with social media.

I do not believe that many of our SDA schools are ready to adopt a BYOD policy, but I thought it would be interesting to think about and at least know that there are many schools out there that are doing this right now. If you think that this sounds like an interesting option, I would encourage you to plan a special day with technology and allow students to Bring Their Own Device on that day. See what ideas you can come up with. If you do try this idea, I’d be interested in learning about your experience.

Hope you have a great week.
Audrey