Dear Mt. Lebanon High School Parents/Guardians:
I'm pleased to announce the introduction of the Mt. Lebanon High School "Bring Your Own Technology" initiative that allows students to utilize their personal technology devices under certain circumstances and in certain areas of the high school building. This pilot program will focus on empowering students to use their personal technology devices for learning purposes in our educational setting.
This new initiative will be implemented in two ways as described below.
1. Beginning today in the high school library, guest network internet access is available to all faculty, staff, students, and guests. Students may now bring and use their own larger personal technology devices such as laptops, netbooks, iPads, Kindles, etc., in the library. In other words, the high school library is now considered a wi-fi "hot-spot" in ways similar to that of the public library, a coffee shop, a Panera's restaurant, etc. Please note that the use of cell phones/iPhones is still prohibited in the library.
2. The second option available to students and teachers will occur within individual classrooms. A group of teachers have volunteered to participate in this pilot program by allowing the use of students' personal technology devices including larger devices (laptops, netbooks, iPads, Kindles, etc.) and personal hand-held devices (cell phones, iPhones, iPods, etc.) within their classroom if their use is appropriate as part of the teacher's lesson. Participating teachers will inform students if they are participating in this pilot, and they will inform students when they are permitted to bring in and use a personal technology device in their class. (At all other times, use of these personal technology devices continues to not be permitted including in hallways, other classrooms, etc., during the school day.)
Please note that if your son or daughter brings a personal technology device, including a laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc., to school to use in the library or in a class with a teacher's approval, he or she is solely responsible for the security and maintenance of their device.
The high school faculty, administration, and district technology department, will be evaluating the outcomes of this pilot throughout the semester with the possibility of expanding the program during the 2nd semester. The cooperation of all students will be essential in helping to make this a successful initiative.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Brian R. McFeeley
Principal
Mt. Lebanon High School
I'm pleased to announce the introduction of the Mt. Lebanon High School "Bring Your Own Technology" initiative that allows students to utilize their personal technology devices under certain circumstances and in certain areas of the high school building. This pilot program will focus on empowering students to use their personal technology devices for learning purposes in our educational setting.
This new initiative will be implemented in two ways as described below.
1. Beginning today in the high school library, guest network internet access is available to all faculty, staff, students, and guests. Students may now bring and use their own larger personal technology devices such as laptops, netbooks, iPads, Kindles, etc., in the library. In other words, the high school library is now considered a wi-fi "hot-spot" in ways similar to that of the public library, a coffee shop, a Panera's restaurant, etc. Please note that the use of cell phones/iPhones is still prohibited in the library.
2. The second option available to students and teachers will occur within individual classrooms. A group of teachers have volunteered to participate in this pilot program by allowing the use of students' personal technology devices including larger devices (laptops, netbooks, iPads, Kindles, etc.) and personal hand-held devices (cell phones, iPhones, iPods, etc.) within their classroom if their use is appropriate as part of the teacher's lesson. Participating teachers will inform students if they are participating in this pilot, and they will inform students when they are permitted to bring in and use a personal technology device in their class. (At all other times, use of these personal technology devices continues to not be permitted including in hallways, other classrooms, etc., during the school day.)
Please note that if your son or daughter brings a personal technology device, including a laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc., to school to use in the library or in a class with a teacher's approval, he or she is solely responsible for the security and maintenance of their device.
The high school faculty, administration, and district technology department, will be evaluating the outcomes of this pilot throughout the semester with the possibility of expanding the program during the 2nd semester. The cooperation of all students will be essential in helping to make this a successful initiative.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Brian R. McFeeley
Principal
Mt. Lebanon High School
6 comments:
Sounds like a marvelous initiative for all...students, teachers and parents.
Are we the only District doing this, or among the first in the county or state ?
Bill Lewis
Bill, in a publication called The Journal - "Transforming Education thru Technology" this appeared in 2010.
Bring Your Own Technology
A school district in Ohio is embracing the "bring your own laptop" concept in an effort to get computers in the classroom without taking a hit to the budget.
By Bridget McCrea08/05/10
With district budgets shrinking and technology advancing at the speed of light, keeping up can be difficult at best. While few would argue that today's students need hands-on experience with technology, some schools lack the resources needed to put the proper tools in the hands of every child.
This isn't unique to Mt. Lebanon or Ohio. Believe districts all over the county are trying it and it does seem like a good idea.
Dick Saunders
Mt. Lebanon is not the first district around here to embrace online technology. In fact, nearby Chartiers Valley recently spent $1 million to purchase Hewlett-Packard laptops for *every* high school student and staff member.
The students received the laptops just before school started in August.
Carole Brown
"Bring your own device" (BYOD) is the new "hot topic" in IT. Many corporations are looking at it to help them avoid costs with PC deployments (you don't have to deploy/upgrade a PC if you don't take ownership of that device).
The problem with "Bring your own device" is that there are a lot of hidden costs associated with it (at least in the corporate arena). For example, software licenses may not be covered for personal device (think Microsoft Office or Client Access licenses for servers/mail servers/Citrix published applications).
Add to that, there must be a clear delineation of support responsibilities of who's going to configure the devices, what will occur when the device has some sort of failure? (think iPad dropped and glass cracked or a hard drive dying in a laptop right before it's needed in a class for a critical assignment). Are you going to fail a student because their device failed?
Also, the security of devices is not uniform across the network (how many people have laptops that have that "30 day eval" of McAfee that they never upgraded to the full version?). Many companies attempt to mitigate the risks by providing 3 levels of network connectivity, a Secure-Corporate network, a "BYOD" network and a Guest network. The problem is organizing devices and configuring them for the proper network and the cost of the equipment to do this.
And, you will hear people saying that this only makes the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" even greater. When corporations do BYOD, they usually give a device stipend and the employee is responsible to buy the device. It's clear that Mt Lebanon School District does not have the money to be granting stipends for computing devices.
Mind you, Mt Lebanon School District may not have as many concerns about data security as a bank or a hospital but, if they plan to accept credit card payments for anything, those devices that are accepting payments are covered under PCI laws so there are regulatory concerns. Add to that, what happens if a child is having an inappropriate relationship or is lured online while they're on Mt Lebanon's network on their own device (they'll be an admin of the device and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to get around firewall/proxy restrictions).
I understand why Mt Lebanon wants to do this and I'm glad they're doing it in a pilot program. I laud them for doing this instead of something like "every student gets an iPad" which is the equivalent of "Technology for technology sake." But understand that it's not something simple to do and it can cost quite a bit of money and effort to do it right.
I brought my laptop to the commission meeting on Tuesday night. There is usually wifi available in Uptown Mt. Lebanon, but the last two meetings, I couldn't get a signal. I was told that we had gotten a virus. I don't think I should get into how that happened, but you can imagine.
Also, there was no Internet at the high school recently. What happens then?
What happens if they forgot to charge their batteries?
We sure have come a long way. It seems like only yesterday when kids got suspended for bringing their cell phones to class.
Elaine
This article supports Jack's comment. Business Embraces Tablets With Caution
"This might save money, but a heterogeneous mobile environment creates its own issues in terms of IT security and compatibility with existing assets. With tablets a relatively new device on the IT scene—thus subject to a lot of evolutionary flux in terms of hardware or software—the complexity and potential problems rise by an order of magnitude."
Elaine
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