A Transition to Bring Your Own Device?

Torbert, Nancy

Johnson, D. (2012). On Board with BYOD. Educational Leadership, 70(2), 84-85.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a topic that schools are exploring. Should they let students bring their own personal devices to school and use for learning? Why should schools consider letting students bring their own device? 

One factor is that as districts have been facing budget cuts and are finding it more difficult to provide a school-owned computing device to every child, personal devices—tablets, laptops, and smartphones are becoming more affordable.  If schools are considering moving to BYOD, planning and policies should be established for a smooth transition.  These include

·    an acceptable use policy that include personal devices

·    consider why transitioning to a BYOD is acceptable

o    student engagement

o   online collaborative work in the classroom

o   increased student access to school online resources

·         meet infrastructure needs for wireless network (bandwidth)

·        provide staff training—classroom guidelines for technology use and help teachers create lessons that use personal devices, e.g. student polling, writing and editing, multimedia projects.

·       schools will also need to provide guidance to parents on minimum specifications for appropriate devices that may be used.  

·       for students who may not be able to afford a device, schools will need to provide access to online resources by lending out devices or using labs so that all students have access to online resources.

BYOD is an ongoing discussion at many schools. Our school has a strict policy regarding electronics--no cell phones, electronic signaling devices, CD, MP3 Players, and iPods. If the policy is violated the device is to be confiscated.  As a “rule follower” I will have to admit, I've broken the electronic device policy.  When some of my students formed a book group in class, there were not enough print copies of the book they chose in our school library for all in the group to checkout—the solution, I let them use their e-reader instead.