Main imagery: Deposit photos
18 | FOCUS | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
T
he Times They Are A-Changin’, sang Bob Dylan in 1964, and that’s certainly true of how our children
are being educated. With around 80% of 13–18-year-old phone owners now possessing a smartphone, and around 35% of people in the same age group owning or having access to a tablet, more and more schools and colleges are turning to the BYOD (bring your own device) method of learning, with some even making it compulsory. In theory, BYOD has a lot going for it.
For a start, there's the financial benefit to the school. By encouraging pupils to bring their smartphones and tablets into the classroom, and to engage with them constructively during lessons, schools are able to save much-needed money that would otherwise have been spent on buying rows of personal computers (not to mention good old-fashioned textbooks). As Peter Twining, a senior lecturer at the Open University, says, “Many schools have realised that they have to be more creative in how they finance their technology. Some see that many students have technology in their pockets and at home, and have started thinking about whether they can use that stuff.” For the pupils themselves, having ICT
at their fingertips provides instant access to the vast resources of the World Wide Web, and the actual process of mining that information – and sharing it among their colleagues and teachers via social media sites like Facebook, Twiter and Instagram – is equipping them with a whole new skill set. Hanover Public School District in
Pennsylvania is among the bodies that have embraced the BYOD revolution, and it elaborates on the above point in its online manifesto: “[We are] commited to aiding students and staff in creating a 21st-century learning environment. [They] will be able to access our wireless network with their personal devices during the school day. “We believe that equitable access
to technology will aid our students in becoming information producers rather than information consumers, self-directed learners and collaborative team players.” “People were already trying to hide what
they were doing on their smartphones because it was illegal by the school rules. By opening it up, we’ve been given a lot more freedom and things are moving a lot faster,” affirms a student at Katy Independent School District in Texas, which has also adopted the scheme. That’s not to say that Katy has completely let its
guard down, though; it insists that calling and texting features are deactivated during lessons, and that phones and smartphones are referred to in the classroom as 'mobile learning devices', or MLDs. It’s a simple swap: if the kids behave
responsibly, the school will allow them to learn the fun way – and fun, it can certainly be. “The biggest thing for me [with BYOD] is the engagement,” explains Katy teacher Leona Bernard. “It was instant. We were
learning figurative language and looking up lyrics from music, and [the children] became totally interested in words. They were truly pulled into the learning.” However, if you’re one of those schools
that are opening their eyes to the potential of pocket technology, there are a couple of things you should know. Firstly, more than 180,000 computing and communication devices were reported lost or stolen to UK police between March 2013 and February
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