Week 1: Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) in the Classroom

     This week we read a few articles about the benefits (and even some of the detriments) of the idea of Bring Your Own Devices to school. The two articles were "Why Every Student Should be in a 1:1 Classroom" by Kelly Walsh on EmergingEdTech, and "20 Pros and Cons of Implementing BYOD in Schools" by Danny Mareco on SecurEdge. After reading these, it seems as though these articles are mainly referring to this concept in a more elementary school setting (maybe even middle school). However, it could be applied to higher grades. I know for my middle school and even my high school, they assigned us devices, so we were not able to bring our own personal computers. In middle school we got iPads and in high school we got MacBooks. These devices were meant to only be used for school purposes. Back in elementary school, in later years (4th and 5th grade) they had Chromebook carts that would go from classroom to classroom depending on which teacher needed to use them (and I know of some elementary schools that still have school Chromebook carts). 

    These two articles describe the switch to the idea that students of all grade levels bring their own devices to school instead of having the school supply the device. These articles gave many pros and also some cons. For one thing, allowing students to bring their own devices allows for familiarity with the device, instead of having to learn how to operate a completely new device, which allows for more focus on the learning of the content aspect (and also saves time). It also saves the school from having to supply every single student with their own school-related device, which allows them to focus more on just providing for those students who cannot afford their own device. Overall, the concept of bringing your own device allows for a variety of ways for how to learn and demonstrate learning material, whether that be through online projects (like research and presentations), or apps or computer programs that are designed to fit individual student learning levels, and it allows for students to learn at their own pace instead of having to follow the pace of the teacher which may not always be fitting.

    Though with these pros, there were also some cons that have to be considered. But as according to the second article, "20 Pros and Cons of Implementing BYOD in Schools" by Danny Mareco on SecurEdge, "...the pros for BYOD in schools are beating the out the cons here" (as he was only able to think of 15 cons but 20 pros). A few of the possible cons described include students not remembering to charge or even bring their devices which would definitely provide a barrier for the day for that particular student, irresponsible students can find ways to cheat on their devices, the fact that not every family may be able to afford a reasonable device for their child, network problems can occur like overloading from all the devices being on the WiFi at once or even if someone's computer has a virus on it, and just overall distractions that can result from the student's personal device. 

    After reading these pros and cons from these two articles, I think that for at the high school level and even the middle school level, the concept of BYOD is a fantabulous idea. Especially at those ages and in this society now, kids are always on their devices, and I think the ability to broaden learning with them by allowing students to bring them into school and use them for school purposes is a good idea to implement. I think that it also has the potential to be a good idea for elementary classrooms, and I think would work the best in 4th and 5th grade classrooms. It is true that in this day and age almost everyone, and even many younger kids (my 9-year-old cousin being one example) have their own device like an iPad, computer, or sometimes even a phone, but for really young kids, like kindergarten and even 1st grade, the concept of BYOD may not provide as many benefits. Really little kids would probably just be tempted to explore and play on their devices instead of learning through them, and not all kids at that age are able to comprehend the devices in terms of learning as well as older kids. In my opinion, for early elementary-aged children, it may be the best idea to halt the idea of BYOD, but for older kids, I think it is definitely a beneficial concept.