BYOD Panel Discussion

BYOD, not quite the finish to the acronym most expect after reading the first 3 letters but that may not be the case for high school students of the near future because certain school divisions are paving the way in our new high tech school systems. 

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) or 1:1 computing is starting to make waves in Manitoba because some schools are nearing the end of a five year pilot program where students have access to laptops or iPads all day and almost replace the traditional paper and pencil. 

We recently had a five person panel, from three different school divisions come in and talk to us about the process and steps taken to implement a 1:1 computing program, where there is one device per one student. I enjoyed hearing all the necessary steps that were taking and how their different programs compared with one another. It was also nice to hear that something that was part of everyones program was teacher training, where they took the first year of the program mainly to train teachers and prepare for the year where the devices were actually introduced. The reason it was nice to hear is because as much as I use it technology is still fairly intimidating for me, well for me as a teacher. When I want to incorporate technology I want to make sure that I am using it effectively and still cover specific student learning outcomes at the same time so it was nice to hear that divisions were thinking ahead and prepared their teachers ahead of time. I am also a bit of a worrier so I feel if I was given time to actually make a year plan or course outline that a 1:1 or BYOD would not be as intimidating as it is now. 

Kids are being given these devices or laptops as gifts at younger and younger ages so having a BYOD program in your school may not be so far away. In fact, with the success of the three pilot programs, there is now a model for schools to use when implementing the program in their own schools. They know what kind of results to expect, what challenges to face and have answers to parents who haven't even asked a question yet.

It's exciting to see our school system change and it'll be interesting what school divisions are going to follow in the footsteps of the schools who are already 5 years ahead of them. What also may be even more interesting is where are those initial pilot programs going to be five years from now? How much farther ahead than the rest of the pack?

One last thing I want to leave you with is something one of the speakers said. It was along the lines of  "Technology should be like oxygen, it should always be there but never noticed." Now those were not his exact words but something very similar. I like it because it is true, technology is always going to be here and we should incorporate it into our day to day lives to the point where it is no longer a big deal that we are using it.