BYOT a year in perspective

At the beginning of this school year, North Harford High School implemented a “bring your own technology” policy into its classrooms. For some this caused excitement, others frustration.
Prior to this year, North Harford Middle School had already piloted this system, so it wasn’t difficult for the freshmen to adjust.
Freshman Nick Danielczyk says he likes BYOT because he’s allowed to bring his phone to school, but if there was one thing he could change he, “would change the Wi-Fi connection, and make there be less blockage of websites.” The use of technology in class is something Danielczyk enjoys, rather than going to the computer labs or working out of textbooks.
Many teachers implemented BYOT into their classes. They use it for worksheets, games, and many other creative activities. French teacher Madame Arist uses BYOT often in her classes. She uses, “many different sites like Quizlet, Padlet, Kahoot, the QR scanners and some others.” When Arist first heard of BYOT she was excited, because she loves using technology with her students and thought it was a wonderful idea.
Sophomore Audrey Diventi was looking forward to using her own technology in classes, on the school’s Wi-Fi, so she didn’t have to use data. She likes it because “you get to bring your own devices and that’s cool because you don’t have to use the slow computers.”
Both teachers and students say they use technology almost daily in their classes. Art teacher Mrs. Kathryn Humphrey uses technology to benefit her teaching because “it helped since the computers are slow and the students can find art references.” Humphrey also uses the app Seesaw, a network where students can share their art pieces for the other students in the class to see their progress.
She does however dislike how slow the network is. Arist agrees, and also says she “wishes they would open YouTube access so students could watch videos,” to benefit their class activities. Most students and teachers have encountered Wi-Fi connection issues, as well as slow connection due to the bandwidth of the network.
It has been a concern among many that students might abuse the access they have to using their own technology. The fear has been that they might take advantage of using their phones at times they aren’t supposed to be. Arist pointed out that students might “take advantage of having the technology and it may compete with their attention.”
Most teachers and student have used and praised bringing their own technology. Time will tell if more will jump on the bandwagon and find use in the “bring your own technology” initiative.