Districts Tackle Questions Surrounding BYOT Policy

"Bring-your-own-technology" efforts in schools raise questions about what works

Ed Week - Digital Directions

For the small but passionate minority of school districts that are opening doors to student-owned mobile devices, there’s a lot riding on how effective the policy shift turns out to be in improving teaching and learning.

And whether a district or school is pushing instructors to use those devices educationally, or just curbing discipline issues by removing consequences for use, experts say making the new policy approach work requires much more than simply lifting a cellphone ban.

Districts wading into the “bring-your-own-technology,” or BYOT, waters are wrangling with which issues should be tackled through districtwide policy, and which should fall under school-level procedural codes. In the process, they’re trying to leave room to solve unanswered legal questions about Internet security and privacy.

All the while, colleagues in other districts that are interested in heading in this policy direction, but are wary of the possible complications, are closely watching the successes and failures of those that are already doing it.

“This is a thing you can’t really let blow up in your face, because if it goes bad, you’re never going to get it back,” says Kyle Menchhofer, the technology coordinator for the 2,200-student St. Marys city school district in St. Marys, Ohio, which will be piloting a BYOT program with 11 teachers in grades 8-12 later this fall. The district has issued school-owned mobile devices to students in grades 3-6 since 2008, but doesn’t have the financial resources to extend the program to the upper grades.

“You need to make sure you can take it at a pace you can handle,” Menchhofer adds.

Kayla Boone, a sophomore at Oak Hills High School, in suburban Cincinatti, and her classmates use their cellphones to text answers to questions during an English class. The answers are displayed on a class whiteboard.

—Pat McDonogh for Digital Directions

At the same time, technology leaders at BYOT schools say, a fear of problems such as access to inappropriate online content, digitally enhanced cheating, and rampant classroom distractions can lead districts to overthink, and worse, overwrite corresponding policy adjustments to stifle creative implementation of the devices.

Early reports from the field suggest that the simpler approach is more successful. Districts that appear to be experiencing the smoothest transitions from banning mobile devices to welcoming them have undergone as little policy change as possible, striking or heavily revising only obvious barriers such as districtwide cellphone bans. They then issue school-level acceptable-use guidelines that reflect individual campus cultures and treat violations of those guidelines like other behavioral issues.

It’s more about making sure policies are worded in a way that takes into account the various uses of technology in schools, says Todd Yohey, the superintendent of the 8,100-student Oak Hills district in suburban Cincinnati, which is now in its second year of implementing a BYOT policy at the high school level.

“For example,” he says, “your current cheating policy probably covers cheating via a cellphone or a laptop.”

Similarly, disrupting class with a text-message exchange would be treated the same as talking out of turn or passing notes, Yohey says.

‘Be Nimble’

Of course, making such a policy change can get complicated by district politics.

That was the case in the 11,000-student Eau Claire Area School District in western Wisconsin, whose bring-your-own-technology program was delayed ...

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