Students shouldn't have to learn how we teach... We should teach how they learn. Whether we want to admit it or not, students are more connected to mLearning and mobile devices (whether it be smart phones or tablets) more than ever and it’s not going away any time soon, so why not embrace it? I should take a moment to say that this post will be a bit tricky for me to write. As a DL teacher, all of my students do at least a little bit of their learning on a computer, tablet or mobile device; if not all of it so in a way they have signed up for this schooling knowing that they need to have their own device or at least access to a shared one. I did find it hard to connect to some of the discussion that we had surrounding this topic because of my teaching situation.
We had a Blackboard Collaborate session about BYOD and it was interesting to hear the views and opinions of other teachers who are in the face-to-face schools. We also watched some video clips and the one that struck me was the one that was BYOD in the 21st Century when it said “leave the computing to the computers and focus on the meaningful”. I agree with this statement, why not give our students the ability to use the computers to do what they do best and they can then use it as a tool to do meaningful work that deepens their learning? I will admit that if I were to write all my blog posts with pen and paper, I would not be as articulate and thoughtful as I am when I type. No, it’s not because I use the thesaurus to make myself seem smart, I just know that if I were writing it out, I would only want to write it one time. Typing essays, blog posts and other assignments allows me to go back over what I have written, make changes, modify the way I stated something and most of all, I am a lot faster at typing then printing.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a supporter of the BYOD movement. Again, because I am in a DL setting it is hard for me to picture the struggles that would be faced outside of the DL realm and in the public schools but I can back myself up with one instance I had in a face-to-face public school. I had a student who had dyslexia in one of my practicum classes and we allowed him to start bringing his laptop into class. His laptop allowed him to do just what I explained above – he could type a lot faster, he could get all his ideas down then go back and fix spelling errors and grammar after, and he felt a lot more confident with his ability to use the computer to check for errors instead of fretting over each word he had spelled with a pen on a piece of paper (we left the computing to the computer).
References:
Marc-Andre Lalande (June 4, 2012). BYOD in the 21st Century retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSXyfX8ABhA
As a little extra: Here is my daughter who participated in BYOD by playing on her tablet (practiced tracing her alphabet) during our Collaborate meeting.
We had a Blackboard Collaborate session about BYOD and it was interesting to hear the views and opinions of other teachers who are in the face-to-face schools. We also watched some video clips and the one that struck me was the one that was BYOD in the 21st Century when it said “leave the computing to the computers and focus on the meaningful”. I agree with this statement, why not give our students the ability to use the computers to do what they do best and they can then use it as a tool to do meaningful work that deepens their learning? I will admit that if I were to write all my blog posts with pen and paper, I would not be as articulate and thoughtful as I am when I type. No, it’s not because I use the thesaurus to make myself seem smart, I just know that if I were writing it out, I would only want to write it one time. Typing essays, blog posts and other assignments allows me to go back over what I have written, make changes, modify the way I stated something and most of all, I am a lot faster at typing then printing.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I am a supporter of the BYOD movement. Again, because I am in a DL setting it is hard for me to picture the struggles that would be faced outside of the DL realm and in the public schools but I can back myself up with one instance I had in a face-to-face public school. I had a student who had dyslexia in one of my practicum classes and we allowed him to start bringing his laptop into class. His laptop allowed him to do just what I explained above – he could type a lot faster, he could get all his ideas down then go back and fix spelling errors and grammar after, and he felt a lot more confident with his ability to use the computer to check for errors instead of fretting over each word he had spelled with a pen on a piece of paper (we left the computing to the computer).
References:
Marc-Andre Lalande (June 4, 2012). BYOD in the 21st Century retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSXyfX8ABhA
As a little extra: Here is my daughter who participated in BYOD by playing on her tablet (practiced tracing her alphabet) during our Collaborate meeting.