Bring Your Own Device to School - BYOD
BYOD
The Chequamegon School District (CSD) recognizes the advancement in personal computing devices and current trends in mobile technology. It also recognizes the need for every student to be technologically savvy, information fluent, and capable of functioning proficiently and safely in an online society. In order to achieve these goals, every student must have access at all times to capable computing and communication devices. The district has adopted a goal of achieving a 1-to-1, device-to-student ratio within 3 years, beginning with the 2011-2012 school year. With current budget constraints, the district is unable to provide every student with a digital learning device. Thus, in order to achieve the 1-to-1 ratio in this time frame the district is allowing Bring-Your-Own-Device to school or BYOD. Many schools around the nation are adopting a policy similar to this to achieve 1-to-1 computing for the enhancement of education. CSD plans to implement BYOD fully beginning Tuesday, March 6, 2012. This will allow students to access our secure wireless network with their own device within the school day. Devices include personal laptops, smart phones, portable storage media, and other handheld devices such as iPods and iPads.
While we are excited to offer this opportunity for our students and believe it will provide benefits in learning for them, we have developed guidelines in order to ensure that learning is the key focus of this initiative. We promote the use of technology to enhance this experience for students and staff. As we support students, through their learning experiences, to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools to collaborate, do their homework, access resources, etc., the BYOD program allows them to use their own device in a way that provides access to our public wireless network and filtered Internet access while at school, with continued access beyond the school day,1 that has not been present previously. During the remainder of the 2011-2012 school year it is our expectation to provide training and support to staff members to better understand the possibilities that exist through students utilizing their own technology devices for learning, how to appropriately monitor and support the use of these devices, and provide information relative to utilizing the devices to expand the learning of students beyond the school day and classroom in ways not previously possible. We understand that this will be a growth process for staff and our goal for this implementation is to give students access and for us to support the use of this technology as it benefits students in learning while we continue to grow in the understanding, skill, and methodology of how to best use these devices in the learning process. Users will be prompted to accept terms and conditions of use prior to accessing the Chequamegon School District’s public wireless network. Those who do not accept the terms and conditions of use will not be able to access the CSD Public wireless network. The terms and conditions of use prompt will appear each time an outside user attempts to access this network. Once on the CSD Public network, all users will have filtered access to the Internet just as they would on a district-owned device. Revised January, 2012 1. The CSD public wireless is available until 7PM M-F. |
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