R&D: BYOD2

Our R&D core team met for the first time this year on Tuesday.  Our purpose is to explore, research, design and develop new teaching and learning environments for the 21st century - we will study, pilot, prototype, design and share research in new designs of schooling, teaching and learning and we will evaluate the impact that these initiatives are having.  Our job is to envision what ASB could look like in 5 or 10 years time.  Through looking into the social shifts that are coming in the future we are making decisions now that will put us ahead of the curve.  We are looking at what new positions need to be created at school and at what PD is needed.  Everyone on the R&D core team has chosen to be a part of this - we are all motivated by and passionate about the learning that we are engaged in and the people we are working with.

This year's task forces are researching the following:  project based learning, gamification, alternative school year structures and BYOD Device 2.  There are also parent groups who are researching issues such as ethics in a digital age, augmented reality, internships and apprenticeships, multiple generations at a workplace and facilities design among others.

The group I am working on right now is BYOD Device 2.  This year we transitioned into a BYOD programme from Grade 4 upwards, now we are asking is one device enough?  Many of the faculty this year opted to register a second device to use at school, so I started my research by looking at what these devices were.

The first device for all faculty is a laptop.  67% of the faculty who opted to bring in their own device this year brought a MacBook Pro or Air.  Looking further to see what the second device was I noticed that 47% registered an iPad, 37% registered an iPhone and 16% registered another tablet as their second device.  The interesting thing about this is that every single one of the teachers who brought in a Mac as their first device, chose an iOS device as their second device - possibly this is because of the way that the devices sync easily.  If this is so, then this could have implications for our BYOD Device 2 pilot for students: 70% of the students who registered their BYOD chose a Mac.  

It's interesting to consider what might be the second device of choice - the market is rapidly changing so we are wondering what criteria should be chosen.  It's hard to consider a second (or secondary) BYOD when we don't yet know what it could look like and there are many other things we need to consider such as apps - will we require certain ones on the second BYOD, or will we let the students choose since they already have a standard set on their first BYOD?

Our research period for this will be 6 weeks.  We then want to move onto prototyping it for a couple of months.  We hope to report back on what we have learned in mid- to late-January.  Check out the ASB Findings blog to read about this and other R&D initiatives this year.

Photo by Exacq, 2011