BYOD: There's an App for That

At my school we offer "options" for junior high students. These classes are offered for two 40 minute blocks a week for about three months and the content offered is designed by the teacher. I am lucky to teach with some incredibly talented teachers who offer some options like art, music and drama. I tend to offer options that involve technology since that is an area that I am passionate about.

At our school if the option you want to offer is not chosen by enough students to fill the class for three rotations you end up having to teach an option that has too many students enrolled in it for it to be taught by only one teacher. I guess this encourages teachers to offer options that will be chosen by students but this can be difficult for some teachers given their skill set and comfort level. It would be awful if I had to teach art - and not just for me but for the students too.

I am also fortunate to work in a school and school district where technology use by both teachers and students is supported. After attending the ISTE Conference in June I decided that I would try to incorporate more mobile device use in my classes and what better way to get my feet wet and try this out than in my option class? I really loved the BYOD sessions (bring your own device) at ISTE and thought that junior high students would really like this too so I created an option that students could bring their device to and we would explore the multitude of apps for our educational and personal lives and then write reviews about them and post to a class blog. I was super excited about this option and couldn't wait for my classes to fill up. I was very surprised when I was told that I would JUST have enough students to offer this class for all three option rotations.

Initially when I started this class I thought students would be able to download an app and just use it, play with it and make things up with it. This is not the case. They generally have no idea what to do with the apps. Each week they are given a theme or category that the app they use must fall into, such as apps for staying organized, taking notes, creating presentations, etc. and I provide many examples of apps that they can use (for both iOS and Android) and I go through some ideas of how to use them and I encourage them to try to use the apps in their other classes if allowed to. This is still not enough structure for them. I have since changed my lessons so that now they actually have to send me something that they have done with the app, such as a presentation about hockey, and then they post their review to the class blog.

In summary, my first attempt at this option feels somewhat disastrous. At least there will be a lot of improvements for me to make for the next rotation! Here are some other challenges:

1. Apple IDs require credit cards: there should be a NONE option when setting up the Apple ID but for two of my students we simply can not get this to work and they can't download apps without entering a credit card.
2. Students are not reliable: each class I have a handful of students whose device is not charged or not at school. Junior high students are also very forgetful about accounts and passwords.
3. Technology doesn't always work: I am very used to this when it's a school computer the student is on but in that case I can send them to a different machine, or install the missing software. But when it is a student device there is really not much that I can do other than basic troubleshooting.
4. Students think devices are for entertainment only: students don't use their devices to do the types of things I would like them to. Something as simple as using the calendar seems to be beyond the scope of use for them, especially for the grade 7 students. The device also has so many other distractions on it that it is difficult for the students to explore an app for a full fifteen minutes. And it's not like I can take their device away for it being a distraction to them.