Getting Our Feet Wet

So we're in the final stages of planning for Bring Your Own Device/Technology (BYOD/T) for the school. Things are well underway, and we are preparing professional development for teachers. They won't be required to participate in BYOD or the PD, but I hope they will. We have some super teachers here and I think that proper application of technology can make their classrooms more exciting and will help students learn skills which will benefit them as they continue into careers and higher education.

We began a little over a year ago discussing how BYOD might impact our school division. At the time we were revising the Code of Conduct, which had prohibited all cell phone use or possession during school hours. This was a policy written several years prior in reaction to complaints that cell phone use during school hours was becoming prolific and teachers felt that little was being done to restrict it. Many felt that cell phones were a disruption to the instructional environment. Discipline for cell phone use skyrocketed after this policy went into place, but actual use became much less prevalent. Since that time, technology has evolved greatly. Android and iOS were in their infancy. RIM and Palm were the only options for so-called smart devices or PDA, and they had not ventured anywhere near education. I was on the no cell phones side of the debate, and honestly there wasn't much resistance. Most staff and parents were tired of their children's attachment, both physical and psychological, their mobile phones.

Last year, we re-evaluated that policy, and modified it to allow the use of mobile devices sans their network connections, wired or wireless. We considered that we are not longer referring to only phones. We also considered that there is a time and place for every tool and as educators we should be part of teaching our children what is and what is not an appropriate time and place for mobile devices. Now we press forward into BYOD.

We will open our wireless, but not wired, network to student and staff mobile devices beginning this fall. We have upgraded our infrastructure, met with teachers, administrators, students, and parents, put together training, and carefully considered the consequences both intended and unintended. We believe we are ready, but we won't really know for sure until well into the 2013 - 2014 school year.