This blog entry came about after a friend and former colleague posed a simple question to me in an email - what do I think about BYOD? An innocent enough question, coming from a HS principal in the Middle East who is considering starting a 1:1 laptop program. As we have been in discussion again about changing the model of our 1:1 program away from a school-owned model, and BYOD has been brought into the conversation, this little question resulted in a rather long response . . . so I thought I would drop my thoughts on the subject in here as well . . .
The BYOD question is a big one. We have been hashing through this ourselves the last little while as we are considering switching to a student-owned model. In international schools, the BYOD question is very different than in a public school back home though. BYOD is a huge buzzword right now so don't get caught up in the hype, which is clearly focused on schools back home. So let's get into this from an international school's perspective . . .
First of all, schools back home are going BYOD to get technology into the classrooms without incurring very much cost to the school itself. There are still costs however, particularly in infrastructure and connectivity, in-house technical support, and teacher training. These are all very real and important issues which must be in place before any laptop program is launched or it will fail for sure. The machines themselves are just one part of the equation, and you need everything else as well in order to succeed.
Let's talk about the different models for laptop programs first, and then come back to the other considerations such as your faculty, the school programs on offer, and how the laptop program will support learning and be integrated into the classroom.
In my mind, there are 4 models for laptop programs (all with their own advantages and disadvantages):
1) BYOD - all students buy their own machines ranging from laptops to tablets to smart phones, which meet some kind of minimum specifications prescribed by the school. The school would still need to provide wireless connectivity and would have to provide training and support for at least the faculty (assuming that the school provides machines for the faculty). As there is no consistency with the hardware or the software in students hands, what you end up with is a program where computing is an adjunct to what is going on in the classroom. There will be some integration of technology, but it will not be consistent across the school as not everyone has the same tools to work with all of the time. The integration that you do see will be with the faculty who take this on and use Web2 tools which are browser based, free, and multi-platform. The faculty and technology integration in general, end up being the losers here, as it becomes very challenging to support students using a variety of equipment in the classroom, and to do anything constructive with integrating technology when there is no commonality of tools amongst your students.
2) Student-owned model with a strict prescription for the make/model/operating system allowed within the school. With this model, the school regulates exactly what machine the students have, but they are owned by the students and they can buy them anywhere they want. With this kind of model, the school might also have students buy into a school software package/licensing agreement to ensure that everyone has the same software tools available to them, but this scheme might not be appropriate or do-able within the school environment you are in or within the laws/regulations of the country. Some people call this "Bring This Device" as you are specifying exactly what the student needs to have. There will likely be pushback from some parents with this kind of model as some companies/organizations only pay for the tuition of their children, so this would be an extra expense. Such a model is also challenging for a school to implement and regulate - you have to be really firm with this or else it will morph into the regular BYOD model above. Another consideration here is that the school will have little to no hand in the support and warranty/servicing of these machines as they would be coming from various sources/vendors with different warranties, operating systems and overall packages. This can get pretty messy, especially if you are trying to tell a parent that they just bought a new machine which does not fit the school specifications . . . making it very hard to strictly enforce.
3) Student-owned model where students must purchase a complete package of machine plus software through the school. The school can completely regulate what the students have in their hands without actually owning all of the machines. With this kind of model the school can offer machines at reduced prices through volume purchasing and special deals with the vendors, but this is again subject to the laws and regulations of the country that you are in. And there will always be pushback from certain segments of you school population depending on what platform you choose, vendor you work with, and whether people have access to buying the same machines at cheaper prices elsewhere. And there will also be the segment of the population who will not want to incur the extra cost of buying a computer as well - they will want everything included in the tuition costs. The faculty and students are the clear winners here, as technology integration can really take hold and be effective in any classroom. The real difference between this model and the one above is that the school is enforcing the overall package that is bought by the student/parents for use at school and therefore has better control over the software, operating system, support, maintenance and warranty of those machines.
4) School-owned model where the school purchases, provides, maintains and supports all of the machines in the school - this is our current model which we are actively looking to phase out over the next few years. The school has complete control over everything in this case, which is great for the faculty and for the student body in terms of integrating technology in the classroom as everyone has same tools. It's also great for parents as there is no extra costs involved to them - everything is part of the tuition no matter if it is being paid for by a company, personally, or by another organization such as an embassy. The loser here is the school due to the tremendous cost involved with implementing, maintaining and supporting such a program. Combined with a lack of ownership of the machines by the students, this creates an environment which is very expensive to keep working - we are finding our 1:1 program to be hard to sustain in the long run using this model. With changing student populations from year to year, rising costs for repairs/replacements each year over a three year refresh cycle, and completely replacing all of the machines in a school division each year (on a rotation), it all adds up to a lot of fiscal headaches. Strangely enough, the students can be winners or losers in this model, depending on the grade they are in and where their school is with respect to the refresh cycle. My daughter is currently using some old, decrepit netbooks through this year, and then will move to a used PC laptop next year which will be in its last year of usage. After that, she will get a brand new machine (which will likely involve a change a platform) to use for two years, unless the school changes to a student-owned model by that time. So her computing outlook in the school is not very good for the next few years, which does not sit well with me as a parent.
I have worked within a BYOD laptop program at a previous school, which was very difficult on a day-to-day basis. Even as a technology and computer science teacher, it was often frustrating trying to help and support students in my own classes who had different machines (PC laptops, Mac laptops, Tablet-PCs, old machines, new machines, machines on their last legs), difference operating systems (various versions of Windows and Mac OSX, different languages, and even the occasional Unix box) and different software packages (licensed versions of Office, pirated copies of software from the market or downloaded online, and free/trial/alternative versions of various packages). On a day-to-day basis, I found it very difficult to support my students with their projects, and I know that other faculty who were less tech savvy simply gave up trying. These teachers either did not try to integrate technology (because they couldn't) or they assigned projects where the students decided upon the tools that they would use to complete them (some with technology and some without). In both of these cases, technology was not being integrated in these classrooms but was relegated to being an add-on if the student had the right tools available and the knowledge to use them.
My school currently has a school-owned model which is also not ideal. We are looking to move to a student-owned model over the next few years which is somewhere in between #2-3 above - this is all in discussion right now. Our current model is simply not sustainable, economically speaking. Moving away from the school-owned model has been discussed in past years, but has always been knocked back for a variety of reasons, but it might just be the right time to make a change now.
Other considerations that you have to think about that play a major role in this decision include:
1) Money - Who is paying for the program? Included through tuition, a capital levy, or simply budgeted for every year? BYOD and school-owned models are both all about the money - when the school has the money and when it does not. This is why BYOD programs are popular in public schools back home, and seem to be part of the conversations in international schools when they just starting a 1:1 laptop program. It seems to me that international schools which start out with a BYOD program either keep with that model due to financial reasons, or change to a more integration friendly over over time.
2) Full Technology Integration - Are you aiming for a fully integrated program (meaning technology is available for use 24/7 on a 1:1 basis, with coaches/integrators available to support faculty, and with a possible shift away from dedicated technology classes and computer labs)? If you are getting rid of your computer labs and are expecting all teachers and students to use technology in the classroom whenever it is appropriate to enhance teaching and learning, then you need some kind of consistency with the tools on hand. In my opinion, this is where a BYOD program falls down, hard. Not all devices are created equal - I find it very hard to expect teachers to come up with innovative and engaging lessons which integrate technology, where they have to differentiate for the different learning styles and abilities of their students, as well as the myriad of devices that they might have in their hands that day. It can be done, but is it asking too much of the faculty?
3) School Program - Will the platform/machine be expected to support all aspects of a student's course load, or will the school maintain specialized labs and software licenses for these courses/purposes? If you have courses in your school which have special needs for hardware or software as most international schools do, then a BYOD program will have to be supplemented with specialized labs and software licensing schemes to get these tools into the hands of the students, whereas the other models above can somewhat mitigate these factors. For example, we have art, design technology and photography courses which use specialized software and have corresponding hardware requirements for running the software packages. With a BYOD program, all of these courses would either need to be outfitted with all of their own equipment to support them, or the courses would have to be completely overhauled and redesigned. The potential cost of providing the hardware and software for select students in these courses who do not have the right kind of device, constitutes having a bank of school-owned machines, which is contrary to the aims of a BYOD program. So would the school's program and/or curriculum change instead? Another example involves specific software that all students need to use to connect with various pieces of science equipment and probes. With a BYOD program there would be a large segment of every grade who would need to frequently borrow a laptop just to get their lab work done. Having to keep banks of machines on hand for student use is not cost effective in the long run.
4) Purpose - What is the overall purpose of introducing or bringing in a new piece of technology into a classroom, department, team or school? How will it be used in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning? These are the questions that come up in my mind whenever a new piece of technology is proposed, and these questions still apply to a whole 1:1 laptop program initiative. If you want to simply allow technology into the classrooms and see what happens, without great cost to the school, then a BYOD program could be the way to get started. But if you want to move towards a model where technology is ubiquitous and fully integrated into the classroom, then a lot of time, energy, thought and research should be invested beforehand to see which model best fits where your school is now and where it wants to be in the future.
In summary, for international schools where the stakeholders pay a lot of money in tuition, I think that there is a strong expectation for these schools to be on the leading edge with technology and integration (no matter who is paying for it all). Can a BYOD program deliver all of this in an international setting? Not in the long run - the continual frustration of having a huge mixture of devices in the classroom weighs down the faculty and leads to the eventual change in model to either a student-owned or school-owned model. My previous school started out with a hybrid BYOD model and now has firmly moved to a model which is close to #2 above. My current school still has the school-owned model which it started out with about 6-7 years ago, but is now considering changing to some form of a student-owned model. Note that the administration wants to explore moving to a BYOD program, but it is the recommendation of the tech department that we fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
What am I in favour of? A student-owned model which gives them ownership and responsibility of their machine, and allows them to take it with them when they leave the school or graduate. A model which levels the playing field for the student body, placing the same machine with the same set up and software on it, in the hands of the students and the faculty. I am in favour of a laptop program which supports teaching and learning, without placing a huge onus on the faculty. And finally, I am for placing technology in the hands of students which is ubiquitous and transformative to their learning.
The BYOD question is a big one. We have been hashing through this ourselves the last little while as we are considering switching to a student-owned model. In international schools, the BYOD question is very different than in a public school back home though. BYOD is a huge buzzword right now so don't get caught up in the hype, which is clearly focused on schools back home. So let's get into this from an international school's perspective . . .
 |
First of all, schools back home are going BYOD to get technology into the classrooms without incurring very much cost to the school itself. There are still costs however, particularly in infrastructure and connectivity, in-house technical support, and teacher training. These are all very real and important issues which must be in place before any laptop program is launched or it will fail for sure. The machines themselves are just one part of the equation, and you need everything else as well in order to succeed.
Let's talk about the different models for laptop programs first, and then come back to the other considerations such as your faculty, the school programs on offer, and how the laptop program will support learning and be integrated into the classroom.
In my mind, there are 4 models for laptop programs (all with their own advantages and disadvantages):
1) BYOD - all students buy their own machines ranging from laptops to tablets to smart phones, which meet some kind of minimum specifications prescribed by the school. The school would still need to provide wireless connectivity and would have to provide training and support for at least the faculty (assuming that the school provides machines for the faculty). As there is no consistency with the hardware or the software in students hands, what you end up with is a program where computing is an adjunct to what is going on in the classroom. There will be some integration of technology, but it will not be consistent across the school as not everyone has the same tools to work with all of the time. The integration that you do see will be with the faculty who take this on and use Web2 tools which are browser based, free, and multi-platform. The faculty and technology integration in general, end up being the losers here, as it becomes very challenging to support students using a variety of equipment in the classroom, and to do anything constructive with integrating technology when there is no commonality of tools amongst your students.
2) Student-owned model with a strict prescription for the make/model/operating system allowed within the school. With this model, the school regulates exactly what machine the students have, but they are owned by the students and they can buy them anywhere they want. With this kind of model, the school might also have students buy into a school software package/licensing agreement to ensure that everyone has the same software tools available to them, but this scheme might not be appropriate or do-able within the school environment you are in or within the laws/regulations of the country. Some people call this "Bring This Device" as you are specifying exactly what the student needs to have. There will likely be pushback from some parents with this kind of model as some companies/organizations only pay for the tuition of their children, so this would be an extra expense. Such a model is also challenging for a school to implement and regulate - you have to be really firm with this or else it will morph into the regular BYOD model above. Another consideration here is that the school will have little to no hand in the support and warranty/servicing of these machines as they would be coming from various sources/vendors with different warranties, operating systems and overall packages. This can get pretty messy, especially if you are trying to tell a parent that they just bought a new machine which does not fit the school specifications . . . making it very hard to strictly enforce.
3) Student-owned model where students must purchase a complete package of machine plus software through the school. The school can completely regulate what the students have in their hands without actually owning all of the machines. With this kind of model the school can offer machines at reduced prices through volume purchasing and special deals with the vendors, but this is again subject to the laws and regulations of the country that you are in. And there will always be pushback from certain segments of you school population depending on what platform you choose, vendor you work with, and whether people have access to buying the same machines at cheaper prices elsewhere. And there will also be the segment of the population who will not want to incur the extra cost of buying a computer as well - they will want everything included in the tuition costs. The faculty and students are the clear winners here, as technology integration can really take hold and be effective in any classroom. The real difference between this model and the one above is that the school is enforcing the overall package that is bought by the student/parents for use at school and therefore has better control over the software, operating system, support, maintenance and warranty of those machines.
4) School-owned model where the school purchases, provides, maintains and supports all of the machines in the school - this is our current model which we are actively looking to phase out over the next few years. The school has complete control over everything in this case, which is great for the faculty and for the student body in terms of integrating technology in the classroom as everyone has same tools. It's also great for parents as there is no extra costs involved to them - everything is part of the tuition no matter if it is being paid for by a company, personally, or by another organization such as an embassy. The loser here is the school due to the tremendous cost involved with implementing, maintaining and supporting such a program. Combined with a lack of ownership of the machines by the students, this creates an environment which is very expensive to keep working - we are finding our 1:1 program to be hard to sustain in the long run using this model. With changing student populations from year to year, rising costs for repairs/replacements each year over a three year refresh cycle, and completely replacing all of the machines in a school division each year (on a rotation), it all adds up to a lot of fiscal headaches. Strangely enough, the students can be winners or losers in this model, depending on the grade they are in and where their school is with respect to the refresh cycle. My daughter is currently using some old, decrepit netbooks through this year, and then will move to a used PC laptop next year which will be in its last year of usage. After that, she will get a brand new machine (which will likely involve a change a platform) to use for two years, unless the school changes to a student-owned model by that time. So her computing outlook in the school is not very good for the next few years, which does not sit well with me as a parent.
I have worked within a BYOD laptop program at a previous school, which was very difficult on a day-to-day basis. Even as a technology and computer science teacher, it was often frustrating trying to help and support students in my own classes who had different machines (PC laptops, Mac laptops, Tablet-PCs, old machines, new machines, machines on their last legs), difference operating systems (various versions of Windows and Mac OSX, different languages, and even the occasional Unix box) and different software packages (licensed versions of Office, pirated copies of software from the market or downloaded online, and free/trial/alternative versions of various packages). On a day-to-day basis, I found it very difficult to support my students with their projects, and I know that other faculty who were less tech savvy simply gave up trying. These teachers either did not try to integrate technology (because they couldn't) or they assigned projects where the students decided upon the tools that they would use to complete them (some with technology and some without). In both of these cases, technology was not being integrated in these classrooms but was relegated to being an add-on if the student had the right tools available and the knowledge to use them.
My school currently has a school-owned model which is also not ideal. We are looking to move to a student-owned model over the next few years which is somewhere in between #2-3 above - this is all in discussion right now. Our current model is simply not sustainable, economically speaking. Moving away from the school-owned model has been discussed in past years, but has always been knocked back for a variety of reasons, but it might just be the right time to make a change now.
Other considerations that you have to think about that play a major role in this decision include:
1) Money - Who is paying for the program? Included through tuition, a capital levy, or simply budgeted for every year? BYOD and school-owned models are both all about the money - when the school has the money and when it does not. This is why BYOD programs are popular in public schools back home, and seem to be part of the conversations in international schools when they just starting a 1:1 laptop program. It seems to me that international schools which start out with a BYOD program either keep with that model due to financial reasons, or change to a more integration friendly over over time.
2) Full Technology Integration - Are you aiming for a fully integrated program (meaning technology is available for use 24/7 on a 1:1 basis, with coaches/integrators available to support faculty, and with a possible shift away from dedicated technology classes and computer labs)? If you are getting rid of your computer labs and are expecting all teachers and students to use technology in the classroom whenever it is appropriate to enhance teaching and learning, then you need some kind of consistency with the tools on hand. In my opinion, this is where a BYOD program falls down, hard. Not all devices are created equal - I find it very hard to expect teachers to come up with innovative and engaging lessons which integrate technology, where they have to differentiate for the different learning styles and abilities of their students, as well as the myriad of devices that they might have in their hands that day. It can be done, but is it asking too much of the faculty?3) School Program - Will the platform/machine be expected to support all aspects of a student's course load, or will the school maintain specialized labs and software licenses for these courses/purposes? If you have courses in your school which have special needs for hardware or software as most international schools do, then a BYOD program will have to be supplemented with specialized labs and software licensing schemes to get these tools into the hands of the students, whereas the other models above can somewhat mitigate these factors. For example, we have art, design technology and photography courses which use specialized software and have corresponding hardware requirements for running the software packages. With a BYOD program, all of these courses would either need to be outfitted with all of their own equipment to support them, or the courses would have to be completely overhauled and redesigned. The potential cost of providing the hardware and software for select students in these courses who do not have the right kind of device, constitutes having a bank of school-owned machines, which is contrary to the aims of a BYOD program. So would the school's program and/or curriculum change instead? Another example involves specific software that all students need to use to connect with various pieces of science equipment and probes. With a BYOD program there would be a large segment of every grade who would need to frequently borrow a laptop just to get their lab work done. Having to keep banks of machines on hand for student use is not cost effective in the long run.
4) Purpose - What is the overall purpose of introducing or bringing in a new piece of technology into a classroom, department, team or school? How will it be used in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning? These are the questions that come up in my mind whenever a new piece of technology is proposed, and these questions still apply to a whole 1:1 laptop program initiative. If you want to simply allow technology into the classrooms and see what happens, without great cost to the school, then a BYOD program could be the way to get started. But if you want to move towards a model where technology is ubiquitous and fully integrated into the classroom, then a lot of time, energy, thought and research should be invested beforehand to see which model best fits where your school is now and where it wants to be in the future.
In summary, for international schools where the stakeholders pay a lot of money in tuition, I think that there is a strong expectation for these schools to be on the leading edge with technology and integration (no matter who is paying for it all). Can a BYOD program deliver all of this in an international setting? Not in the long run - the continual frustration of having a huge mixture of devices in the classroom weighs down the faculty and leads to the eventual change in model to either a student-owned or school-owned model. My previous school started out with a hybrid BYOD model and now has firmly moved to a model which is close to #2 above. My current school still has the school-owned model which it started out with about 6-7 years ago, but is now considering changing to some form of a student-owned model. Note that the administration wants to explore moving to a BYOD program, but it is the recommendation of the tech department that we fall somewhere in between these two extremes.
What am I in favour of? A student-owned model which gives them ownership and responsibility of their machine, and allows them to take it with them when they leave the school or graduate. A model which levels the playing field for the student body, placing the same machine with the same set up and software on it, in the hands of the students and the faculty. I am in favour of a laptop program which supports teaching and learning, without placing a huge onus on the faculty. And finally, I am for placing technology in the hands of students which is ubiquitous and transformative to their learning.
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