Tuesday, March 13, 2012

BYOD?

Increasingly, what I have been reading lately has revolved around the concept of BYOD (bring your own device) in the classroom. Basically the idea is to allow students to bring in their own smart phones, tablets, notebooks, etc. and use these as a means of engagement and feedback using web pages, as polling devices, and for viewing and interacting with other web based material. This is as opposed to having a computer lab or other formal structured computer experience. One school of thought advocates that the device is an extension of the individual, and that allowing the use of these devices in the classroom increases student engagement and also allows the instructor to spend less time overseeing devices. The argument goes that since these are personal devices, learners already know how to use them, and so the amount of time supporting the device is reduced.

The other side of the argument is simple. Personal devices allow learners to be more easily distracted and the ability to use them for purposes other than classwork automatically raises the likelihood that they will be abused. A secondary argument is that the use of these devices could pose security risks if unsecured devices have access to personally identifiable information.

Here are a couple of articles that I have read in the last few days that address this issue:  http://plpnetwork.com/2012/03/09/pocket-based-learning-my-cellphone-classroom/ , and an interesting take on Polleverywhere from THE Journal (check out the comments at the bottom of the article) http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/03/07/byod-teachers-talk-classroom-use.aspx?=THEMOB
and finally http://www.ryanbretag.com/blog/?p=2767

What are your thoughts?

No comments: