Question: Now that you have had an opportunity to explore issues, ideas and thinking around BYOD, what is your opinion and or experiences regarding students bringing their own devices to school?
Answer: Ruby-Ann hit the nail on the head here. I am a solid believer in BYOD as long as I have expectations in place to create a safe space for students to reach their full potential. The only issue it hurts my heart to think about is if a student couldn’t participate because of the expense. I would NEVER want to experience this in my classroom. On twitter in the #saskedchat last night, a tweet that I favourited can be applied to the BYOD controversy. Below I have ebbed the tweet:
If schools weren’t tied to budgets, teachers could give their students endless opportunities to succeed with technology access! This would then solve the expense issue for low income families. Limitless budgets, dare to dream right? A friend of mine has a classroom blog in their grade 7 classroom, she told me about how a student had posted inappropriate material and explicit language on their blog to get the rest of the class’ attention. She had a private talk with the student and administration about what the student thought would be the appropriate way to apologize for his actions and fix his post. The student came up with the idea they would write their own personal apology and post it to the class. I thought this was an effective way of showing how scary technology can be to give to children to use freely. But again when setting boundaries, students can learn from their mistakes and grow together as a classroom community.
Shaunee Kobialko 