We embarked on a journey this week to develop a policy that allows students to bring their own device into the classroom. We are fact finding and researching in hopes of having this available for students next year. Because of limited funds our high school will never be able to support a 1:1 initiative. We have four computers labs for a building of 900 students. Two of the labs are used almost every hour of every day for technology classes. When state testing occurs, there are no labs available for classroom use. By creating a policy such as this, our students could have technology in their hands to use whenever it could enhance the learning.
Our district had an operating levy pass this fall that will allow us to update our technology infrastructure. Without this update our current wireless network couldn’t handle this increased number of devices. We also hope to eventually bring more teachers and students on board with Google Apps. This will also help more teachers to go paperless and/or reduce the amount of paper used in our district.
We learned in our summer “kick off” with Will Richardson that using technology is how our students are wired. It’s how they learn, it’s how they grow, and it’s who they are. Not allowing them to have technology in the classroom is robbing them of how they problem solve, critically think and connect to the rest of the world. A BYOD environment (when implemented properly) promotes healthy and appropriate technology use.
What I love about my PLN is that I reached out to total strangers this week – people I have never met, people I will never meet – and they helped me. They answered my questions, they shared their resources and they offered encouragement. They told me about obstacles and they shared their successes. This 21st century journey has been more than informative it has changed the way I feel about my colleagues. People that share the same passion and mission are connected. They are connected in a way that only they understand. They are connected because they want to change the way students in the 21st century learn and grow. They are connected for our future.
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