At our international school somewhere in Europe, the school has committed itself to a BYOD programme. The trouble is no one can remember how or why the decision came about. The implementation has been entrusted to two of us who are new to the school. We have both come from schools in the Far East where every student and teacher had a Mac, so we both feel that we've seen a model that works.
Our predecessors have not left any documentation about why the decision was made to start with a programme where the Upper School students (the final 4 grades) would all bring a 'device' to class from the next school year, beginning in September 2013. As we have looked at the feasibility of continuing with this thinking, one element at a time has fallen by the wayside. First it became quickly clear that to introduce the programme in less than a year, when no planning or details existed, was unwise. So the new tech team put the brakes on.
We developed a proposal in which the introduction was delayed until 2014, nearly two years hence; the staff would get laptops a year earlier than the students (there had been no planning for staff machines in the old model: not even when the students had mobile devices would teachers be in the same boat); the school would adopt Google Drive to enable teachers and students to work in the cloud; another change to the original proposal was that the devices would be in the hands of all students from Grade 6, and if it were decided to introduce to only one section, it would be to the younger students in the Middle School. We put this proposal in a Google slides show and presented it to the Academic Leaders meeting (these are the heads of each teaching department such as Science or Foreign Languages). The meeting was cordial and receptive, and the next stage was agreed to be feedback once the ALs had put the ideas to their departments. The feedback was copious and overwhelmingly critical of the proposed model. My colleague was particularly discouraged. The few positive points were very general such as 'flexibility' and 'innovation'. The negative remarks were much more prosaic including reservations about charging cables, time to connect to the projector and eye and back problems for laptop users.
These comments also focused exclusively on the teacher's experience. There was no mention of problems students might experience such as the distractions of the Internet, cyber bullying or the potential for cheating (which in my view are things you have to consider). I felt that the nature of the response said a lot about the dynamic in this established conservative institution. In particular, the consultation process seemed to afford an opportunity for moaning rather than a balanced response. It was also clear that there was very little understanding of what 1 to 1 means since very few of the staff, apart from the newest, have any experience of computers in the classroom apart from our dreadful laptop carts and the IT labs which were scrapped a few years ago.
At least this process had enabled the staff to begin to envisage the ways in which the classroom might change. But it was obvious to us that a couple of crucial steps had been skipped when the project was originally discussed. We constructed a list of questions which we felt had to be answered before any decisions could be made about the direction in which the project should go. In addition, we realised that we, new to the school, would have to take account of the nature of the staff whom we are working with.
Our predecessors have not left any documentation about why the decision was made to start with a programme where the Upper School students (the final 4 grades) would all bring a 'device' to class from the next school year, beginning in September 2013. As we have looked at the feasibility of continuing with this thinking, one element at a time has fallen by the wayside. First it became quickly clear that to introduce the programme in less than a year, when no planning or details existed, was unwise. So the new tech team put the brakes on.
We developed a proposal in which the introduction was delayed until 2014, nearly two years hence; the staff would get laptops a year earlier than the students (there had been no planning for staff machines in the old model: not even when the students had mobile devices would teachers be in the same boat); the school would adopt Google Drive to enable teachers and students to work in the cloud; another change to the original proposal was that the devices would be in the hands of all students from Grade 6, and if it were decided to introduce to only one section, it would be to the younger students in the Middle School. We put this proposal in a Google slides show and presented it to the Academic Leaders meeting (these are the heads of each teaching department such as Science or Foreign Languages). The meeting was cordial and receptive, and the next stage was agreed to be feedback once the ALs had put the ideas to their departments. The feedback was copious and overwhelmingly critical of the proposed model. My colleague was particularly discouraged. The few positive points were very general such as 'flexibility' and 'innovation'. The negative remarks were much more prosaic including reservations about charging cables, time to connect to the projector and eye and back problems for laptop users.
These comments also focused exclusively on the teacher's experience. There was no mention of problems students might experience such as the distractions of the Internet, cyber bullying or the potential for cheating (which in my view are things you have to consider). I felt that the nature of the response said a lot about the dynamic in this established conservative institution. In particular, the consultation process seemed to afford an opportunity for moaning rather than a balanced response. It was also clear that there was very little understanding of what 1 to 1 means since very few of the staff, apart from the newest, have any experience of computers in the classroom apart from our dreadful laptop carts and the IT labs which were scrapped a few years ago.
At least this process had enabled the staff to begin to envisage the ways in which the classroom might change. But it was obvious to us that a couple of crucial steps had been skipped when the project was originally discussed. We constructed a list of questions which we felt had to be answered before any decisions could be made about the direction in which the project should go. In addition, we realised that we, new to the school, would have to take account of the nature of the staff whom we are working with.
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