Allowing students to bring their own devices into the classroom is a relatively new concept to many U.S. school districts. BYOD can help personalize learning by letting students work on devices that they are very familiar with, but it also creates some key challenges for the IT professionals who have to balance the need for computing power with the resources provided by their districts. Here, a handful of district technology heads discuss their BYOD best practices and suggest how others might adopt them.
1) Don’t substitute a BYOD program for a 1-to-1 computing initiative. While the two concepts may seem similar from the CTO’s perspective, lumping them together can be a mistake. According to Bob Gravina, CIO at Poway Unified School District in San Diego, “We look at BYOD as an addition to our 1-to-1 initiative, and not as a replacement for every student having access to a device while in school. |
