As a tech-savvy teacher who has been using Bring Your Own Device in my classroom for over a year, I figured that I understood what can and should be. Our October BYOD Teacher Training session at the McKimmon Center opened my eyes to many of the possibilities that I hadn't considered.
I appreciated that our meeting was different from the visioning team meeting that included the school BYOD leaders, because our goals are much more pragmatic--we're focused more on what BYOD should look like day-to-day in our classroom. The DSAP protocol was an interesting way to look at what skills students should be learning, including emphasizing Productivity as a goal. This is an objective that I align with strongly, and that I work daily to incorporate into my class. While learning Science using their own tech is a great benefit, if my students leave 8th grade knowing how to use their devices to keep up with assignments, check their email, and monitor their grades I will consider it a complete success.
My two favorite parts of the teacher training session were the way that the WCPSS BYOD team put us into groups that had access to different levels of technology AND different tools so that we could see the effect that these parameters have on BYOD learning. It was a powerful lesson to put us in our students' shoes for part of the day... and it was sneaky since we didn't know that each group had different resources. I also enjoyed the open block of time in the afternoon to collaborate with the rest of the RMS team. We used that time to develop a rough plan for how to gradually introduce BYOD to the Rolesville Middle faculty.
Overall, the day was well-spent and I was pleasantly surprised by how helpful it was. I had feared that the activities would be directed at the least tech-savvy folks, but instead they pushed me professionally and I walked away feeling excited about the future of BYOD in my classroom and RMS.
P. Cancellieri