Kirksville high school teachers are now allowing their students to use cellphones in class. On Jan. 28, the Kirksville Board of Education approved the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) policy which lets students use personal devices as a learning tool.
For the past two summers, the school district spent over $300,000 on enhancing its wireless network infrastructure so that all the school buildings are covered by the network, said Neal Chamberlain, secretary of the Kirksville R-III Board of Education.
With the network coverage, the BYOD policy allows more students to access new technologies as the school lacks the resources to meet every student’s need, said Stacy Kramer, District Technical Chair. The policy could bring numerous benefits to students and teach them how to utilize their devices for learning, Kramer said.
“(The policy is) to show the students that yes you can work on school work, or work on school presentations, or things from club, you know, using your phone, using your computer, and it’s more than just watching Youtube.” Kramer said.
The school works closely with Google applications so every student can now access Google doc, Google spreadsheet and other useful tools in class, Kramer said.
Students tend to learn better from the technologies that they are already familiar with, said Lorie Kaplan, executive director of the eMINTs (ee-mints) National Center. But teachers need to establish some rules on using mobile device in order for the policy to work, Kaplan said.
“They also need policies about when it is proper to have them out and using them, when they need to put them away,” Kaplan said. “So have specific procedures on how that works so that students aren’t always having those out, that they know when it’s proper for a particular lesson or a particular task they are doing.”
The Kirksville School District requires students to sign documents beforehand, and they will stop using mobile devices once they violate the rules, Chamberlain said. The school blocks certain websites with inappropriate content as well, Chamberlain said.
There is growing interest in BYOD policy across the country while the progress is slow, Kaplan said. There are still concerns regarding the technologies such as whether teachers can run tests on those devices, Kaplan said.
The BYOD policy will expand to Kirksville middle schools in the future, Kramer said. Learning how to use those technologies at an early age can help the students become more competitive in the job market, Kramer said.