Anyone with a BYOD/One-to-One Policy fancy showing it off?

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

We are currently investigating our options with regards Bring Your Own Device and One Device Per Child and are desperately on the lookout for somewhere where myself, a member of our teaching team and possibly another technician could visit to see how BYOD works in practice, talk with some teachers about the advantages/disadvantages it has bought to the classroom and also discuss some of the technical challenges it may bring.

 

If you can help in any way we really would appreciate it. We are based in Leicestershire but would be willing to travel a reasonable distance to see how this works in practice.

 

Thanks in advance,

Michael

[nathan]

Are you primary or secondary?

[mthomas08]

Hi all,

 

We are currently investigating our options with regards Bring Your Own Device and One Device Per Child and are desperately on the lookout for somewhere where myself, a member of our teaching team and possibly another technician could visit to see how BYOD works in practice, talk with some teachers about the advantages/disadvantages it has bought to the classroom and also discuss some of the technical challenges it may bring.

 

If you can help in any way we really would appreciate it. We are based in Leicestershire but would be willing to travel a reasonable distance to see how this works in practice.

 

Thanks in advance,

Michael

 

Too far for us, but if I was you I would read through a lot of threads in this forum about it.

 

I would also try and do some Off the record conversations with as many Staff as you can. It's not as smooth sailing as some may have led you to believe. We've had our major ups and major downs, we are again in the situation where we are debating "If it's really worth it". And we've even tried different Schemes.

 

More than welcome to PM me, I'm always happy to discuss the Pros/Cons.

[Haptic]

And we've even tried different Schemes.

 

What sort of schemes have you tried? I am interested - no sales pitch to follow just genuinely interested on what has worked for you, what hasn't and why they didn't suit you @mthomas08?

[twin--turbo]

You have to determine what you want to deliver and the security implications.

 

Bear in mind that if anyone has access to your network, with freely available tools, they will, unless your seriously sh...t H..t, have your domain compromised within hours. I have seen hard evidence of this under test conditions.

 

The way we did it was to provide only access to a RDS server (Actually Citrix) via a captive portal and firewall. All they could do was access a remote desktop with all the usual policies.

 

TT

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

Many thanks for the responses provided so far!

 

nathan: We are secondary

 

Mthomas08: I will drop you a pm in a second as it sounds like you have had a mixed experience with it which is certainly something we are interested in hearing about. You generally only get to hear the good (flagship schools, companies, case-studies etc.) so some impartial real world experience with it is what we are keen on.

@twin--turbo: Was thinking, at least initially, of providing a guest portal with only internet access and everything else (All Servers, Switch Management Interfaces etc.) locked off with ACL's.

[twin--turbo]

Do you have a UTM/firewall with a spare port you can configure?

[Sagima]

You don't want to come here to see one done properly! - only the head is really in favour of it

Our admissions officer doesn't like it - she thinks seeing students using their own devices in class looks untidy and like they aren't paying attention to the teacher. She thinks the whole image they convey is wrong even if they are cheaper than buying our own stuff for the pupils to use.

Our head of years 7-8 doesn't like them because he thinks they cause far too much disruption when they get lost and they are status symbols that upset the poorer children who don't have the latest and greatest models.

Another of our senior teachers thinks they are too much of a distraction.

Several of the teachers think that relying on the students to actual bring a charged device into school is asking too much so are unwilling to involve them more than peripherally in their lessons.

The one place they have been successful is children doing work in the library and their respective common rooms and it has removed a lot of pressure on the ICT suites outside of lesson time.

 

Our policy basically boils down to

Years 7-8 banned from bringing in tablets and phones (largely ignored) and from using them in lessons (blind eye mostly turned)

Years 9-11 are allowed to use them in lessons unless the teacher objects but teachers prefer booking ict suites and generally use this as a way to keep the kids quiet that finish their work early otherwise they are kept in bags

Years 12-13 same as 9-11 but teachres expect them to have them on their desks and refer to them - the smaller class sizes make the management of the class a bit easier

[zag]

Doubt you will find many successes really.

 

Giving out computers to all students is simply a bad idea unless you have money to burn(and a problem to solve of course). I seem to remember seeing a study a while back from somewhere in the USA where achievement actually went down with students because they were distracting them from doing real work!

 

The ipads for Los Angeles schools also horribly burned down What Schools Must Learn From LA's iPad Debacle | WIRED

Edited January 25, 2016 by zag

[elsiegee40]

Take a look at the Kent County Council eSafety Officer's policy... it covers everything including BYOD

http://www.kelsi.org.uk/support-for-children-and-young-people/child-protection-and-safeguarding/e-safety

[kathabell]

We have BYOD for students; they have internet access only on a "student filter" (quite stringent). No access to school network; files shared in the cloud via Dropbox/Edmodo/Onedrive. Mainly iPads, but they can use other appropriate tablets. Parents can purchase iPads through school (no leasing, we are simply re-selling them). Currently the scheme is operating for years 8 and 9. We have a set of "classpads" which are managed and a teacher can book (for use with year 10). We are about to expand the scheme to year 7 students and our new intake for September will be included also (parent launch on induction evening in July). We also have 100 staff iPads which are managed via Lightspeed MDM; they are on the school academic network. Student tablets are subject to the AUP policy and classroom management for them is the same as for mobile phones; if used inappropriately there are sanctions.

 

We have an "apps assess" group of staff (5 staff, different faculties) who assess suggestions & if an app looks to be useful. If they agree, it is included on the relevant staff profiles and recommended to students if appropriate.

 

Many of our staff are positive about the use of tablets; they find their "personalised" school ones useful, especially if they roam around school. Tablets are used in class when/where they support the lesson objectives; internet research is popular, but also Book Creator, Edmodo and Garage Band are highly thought of. Several staff are also using iDoceo for the markbook, attaching photos of practical assignments for food tech etc. Staff also like PARS access for electronic registration on their iPads. Tablets are being used to have Skype sessions with local primary school and our international links schools. Staff are using iPads to video trainee teachers for use as part of their CPD.

 

Yes, they are a lot of work. iPads don't play nice in a Windows network; each iteration of iOS seems to seriously upset the apple cart (pardon the pun, actually it isn't funny at all). However in our environment they appear to have a place in promoting active learning. Hope this helps happy to arrange a visit if you'd like to talk to staff/students...

Edited January 26, 2016 by kathabell