BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Panel

Thank you to all the panellists that came out to talk about the One to One Computing in Manitoba Schools. Dakota Collegiate, St James-Assiniboia School Division, and Rolling River School Division came out and talked about the processes that they went through to implement 1:1 computing in their schools and divisions.

Each of these divisions took a lot of time in planning out what the 1:1 computing would look like in their school and going over the pros and cons of implementing this in the divisions. Dakota Collegiate took five years to bring 1:1 computing into the school where each student would have to bring their own device. This process came with many meetings and making decisions together as a team. Teaching styles needed to change once students brought their own devices to class. Andy and Darren from St. James Assiniboia School division talked about the 5 C's (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, citizenship) and using the 5 C's as a lens to decide how technology will work when thinking pedagogically. Their goal was to equip each classroom with ipads. The early years classrooms were given ipad to share and middle years and senior year students were each given their own ipads. This came along with many challenges like breakage, deciding what apps to add, updates, storage, and charging. Rolling River School Division also implemented 1:1 technology. Each student was give a choice of what device they would like to use. Again, along with that come many challenges like monitoring updates, breakage, storage, etc.

Going in I felt nervous that I would feel even more intimidated about using technology in the classroom than I already do. I felt very relieved to hear that each of these school divisions did a lot of planning and discussing as to what this should look like. It was a process and there was also professional development for teachers and students. It would have been great to have a follow up discussion about how we could use ipads/ other devices in effective ways in our classrooms.