Upon reading another students blog post on her children’s school bring your own device (BYOD) schemes (see the blog post here Parent perspective of BYOD). It got me thinking about my own children schools. My eldest is now in grade 8, when we he was going in to grade 7, we went for the usual information sessions. There was a massive push for all of the parents to contribute to the voluntary BYOD scheme or students could hire the device from the school for a fee of $250 per year. I must admit this made me quite anxious. Going from a primary school setting where they didn’t have a BYOD scheme to a high school setting where it seemed the use of technology was of upmost importance and this would be the way the students learning would occur in all classes.
I went into panic mode at the thought of this. As if the cost of going to high school wasn’t enough, the thought of having to buy or hire a device was just another unanticipated cost i had to prepare myself for. My son already had an iPad. I was worried this device wouldn’t cut it for high school use. What about writing assignments, saving things to USB sticks? Would an iPad be good enough? What if it got stolen? What if it got broken? So many thoughts going through my head.
So, after much contemplation, i decided to wait and see how things progressed through grade 7. My son went to school without us signing up to the BYOD scheme. I am glad that we didn’t pay the money to the school now, as I believe it was an overrated scare tactic to get parents to sign up to the scheme. The kids don’t use ICTs within their daily lessons in the classroom. If they have an assignment, the teachers will borrow laptops for the kids to use during class time. My son got a small laptop for Christmas and he will work on his assignments at home. Not once has he ever had to take his own laptop to school. He is not disadvantaged by our decision and I am glad I don’t have to send an expensive device to high school with him everyday.
Until next time,
Kerrie x
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