The days of having to go to school or the library to access the internet are long behind us, and as such, there is a growing use of personal computers in both school and work settings. For instance, out of the last 4 years of my college experience, there were only 3 classes that still required students to bring in physical copies of the assigned homework. Nowadays, almost everything is done through a computer and its even primarily online. All of my library technology class homework is done online, and even the homework for my culinary school is online (there are still in-class tests and projects obviously).
This doesn’t mean that physical classrooms and offices are becoming obsolete, because they provide an important aspect to schooling and work, but there are large parts of our daily lives that live digitally now. Its been seen that the use of personal devices like laptops help keep students engaged in the class and on topic, even though they tend to be seen as an excuse to be distracted. And while some students might stray off topic, in my opinion, the use of personal devices in class can actually be extremely helpful!
According to “Information and Communication Technology in the Classroom: BYOD and the University’s Role”, primary and secondary schools are integrating laptops into their education system, but primarily as a 1:1 laptop initiative, where the school provides the students with their own laptops for classroom and homework use. (Davis and Kohun 4) You can watch a video about a school implementing a BYOD program by watching this video by StaplesTV.
Some educators are reluctant to make the switch to the Bring Your Own Device method of teaching, but relying on this article, this is primarily because of a lack of technical competence, and a feeling of a loss of control over the classroom. (Davis and Kohun 5)
Overall, because the rest of the world is moving on to relying on technology more and more, there is really no reason to not support a BYOD system in order to help us keep up.
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