Saturday, February 4, 2012

#BYOT

There has been a lot of talk lately regarding #BYOT (Bring your own tech) and schools. I have been really struggling with this.. A small part of me thinks this is great, takes the cost away from schools to purchase the device. I do however, have some major concerns.

1. Equity (my main struggle with #BYOT) - My daughter has an iPod, loves the heck out of it. For her it is just as much fun as it is learning. We've gotten many math, basic writing apps and the such. My wife and I are both educators and we can afford to purchase this device for her. In my current district, I know there are many families that can not afford to provide this learning tool for their children.
Where is the equity in learning this way. If the whole premise of public education is to equal the playing field, then I do not see #BYOT as fit to that mantra of equal education for all.

2. Safety - I will plead ignorance here, but how do we manage what is brought into the school network this way? I imagine that there are fixes to this, but I think #BYOT would open up some questions about network safety.

I haven't taken the time to blog much recently, a very long time... Hearing a lot of talk about #BYOT got me thinking, so why not do some writing!

I'd love to hear some cases in the comments, both for and against if anyone would like to contribute to the conversation.

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