The day of technology is upon us.
Onalaska Middle School's 8th graders will be piloting a program called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Through this program students will be encouraged to bring in their own web capable device and use it to enhance what they are doing in the classroom.
There are several good reasons to do this:
- Saves money. Trying to provide a device for each child is becoming more and more unreasonable in today's era of school budgets. With students brining in their own device it saves thousands of dollars in each school.
- Greater access. With students bringing in their own device it creates less strain on the district owned devices. This allows students who may not own a device to have greater opportunity to use those gadgets.
- They're doing it anyway! Students live and operate in a digital world and they do so quite effectively. Speak with a middle schooler that you know and ask them if they can text and juggle at the same time. I'm willing to bet they can. Students communicate, think, and exist in a digital world. Why would we try and make them shut that down when they walk through our doors?
This program will officially kick off on January 24th, the start of our second semester. Mr. Hilker (Instructional Technologies) and I will be going to each 8th grade reading class next week to inform and answer questions from students.
The initial comments from families and students are encouraging. Kids are excited at the prospect of using their own devices in the classroom.
You know what? So am I.
Mr. K
