Whether you work for a large school district or a small one, it’s safe to say that BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has come up in conversation. There are plenty of pros and cons to students bringing their personal devices into the classroom, but the allowance will ultimately come down to the circumstances of each individual school. If your district has chosen to allow students to use their personal devices in class, here are some important things to consider:

1. Have a Proper Network in Place

While you are able to set boundaries on the school-issued devices, things get tricky when a personal device is in play. With school-issued devices, you are able to lock students onto certain screens or webpages during class to ensure they are on task, but that may not work the same on personal devices. What you can do, however, is make the BYOD students work from a protected network with a service such as DNS (Domain Name System), where you can filter the accessibility of the BYOD devices to ensure that students aren’t able to access things they shouldn’t be.

Taking advantage of a solution like this will also help you to keep in line with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule) as well. For all of the requirements, click here.

2. Set Ground Rules for BYOD

If students want to bring in their own devices to use during school hours, they’ll have to understand that there will be ground rules that need to be followed. These rules could cover when it is or is not appropriate to be using the personal device, having specific login profiles that are dedicated to school hours, programs deemed suitable for the classroom, and so on. Depending on your specific situation, these rules will need to be different for every school. Try to think of rules that can limit distractions and keep students focused on the tasks in front of them.

3. Have A Service Plan In Place

Just like school-appointed devices, accidents and damage are bound to happen. But, when it comes to personal devices, what does that mean for you as a technology department? You need to have a plan in place for repairs, and believe it or not, choosing not to repair personal devices is actually a plan you can implement. Otherwise, if you would like to offer repairs, you could charge students to fix their personal devices. They’ll need to go somewhere to get it repaired, so acting as an in-house repair shop could offer you the opportunity to build up additional funds into your budget. If you choose to go this route though, we would highly advise you to have a clause in the agreement that protects you for any liability while repairing a potentially unfamiliar device.

Remember to carefully examine the pros and cons of allowing students to use their personal devices in your classrooms. Every district has its own specific circumstances and challenges, so take some time to determine whether or not BYOD will be a benefit or hindrance to the learning environment.

https://edu-parts.com/blog/post/chromebook-accessories-the-must-haves/