When students are encouraged to bring their own technology to school, this initiative has the potential to empower students and teachers in their learning experiences.  We now have BYOT being implemented in all 35 schools in my district, and it is still gradually spreading from classroom to classroom.  We have noticed varying levels of use of the technology devices that the students are bringing to school, yet our goal is to achieve the optimal potential of BYOT to impact student learning.  To describe the use of instructional technology in our classrooms, we use Bernajean Porter’s Grappling’s Technology and Learning Spectrum to differentiate between Literacy, Adapting, and Transforming uses of technology.  In fact, this spectrum has been incorporated into the classroom observation of our teachers to help focus on areas of strength and potential areas for future growth.

Here are some ways that this spectrum can translate into instructional activities of the BYOT classroom as well as some suggestions for encouraging higher levels of use.

Literacy Uses

Bernajean Porter describes Literacy Uses of technology as the focus on the technology itself rather than on the curriculum.  When the students first bring their own technology into the classroom, they have to learn how to connect them to the districts wireless network.  They are excited about the apps and capabilities of their devices, and they are eager to share and discuss them with each other.  The students often have to help each other with using the technology within the infrastructure of the school district.  This is part of the process of encouraging BYOT in the classroom, and the amount of time that it takes to progress through this level of use varies based on the experiences and abilities of the students.  In my observations, I have seen this level  of use quickly pass, and then the students look for some direction about new uses for their technology tools.  The students are often not used to learning with their own devices.  They may have used them for playing games, texting, and consuming content, but they need their teachers to facilitate some educational and productive uses.

A classroom can get stuck in the literacy level when BYOT is relegated to one day of the week or when it is seen as something extra to be used as a diversion or a reward in the classroom.  To help BYOT progress to the next level of use, the teacher needs to brainstorm with the students how their devices can assist their learning on a regular basis in the classroom.

Adapting Uses

When students begin to use their technology tools to do the same types of assignments they completed without BYOT, then they are engaged in Adapting Uses of their devices. Some examples of adapting BYOT to the classroom can include the following: entering assignments on the calendar of a smartphone instead of writing them on an agenda; taking notes during a lecture with an app; using a word processor to complete writing assignments; making use of the calculator on a cell phone to finish a math worksheet; and researching facts on a topic.  When a student logs into a website to play games with the sole purpose of improving their basic skills in grammar and math or even to watch instructional videos on a topic, they are also using their technology on the adapting level.

In typical 1 to 1 programs where every student has been provided with the same device, classrooms can easily get stuck in the adapting uses of technology.  Instead of reading from a paper textbook, the students are sometimes given the assignment to read the digital textbook and then to enter their answers to questions at the end of the chapter on the device.  Another example of an adapting use is when the teacher directs all of the students to complete the same project using the same software, and the end products all end up being basically the same.  BYOT can help to encourage higher levels of use because assignments have to be more open-ended to account for the students’ differing devices.  To move to the next level of use, the teacher has to provide flexibility for student choices and to be willing to learn alongside the students.

Transforming Uses

As teachers begin to empower students with the Transforming Uses of their technology devices, the tools seem to disappear in the classroom, and the focus becomes centered on the construction of new meanings.  The teacher’s job shifts from teaching about technology or directing instruction into a more facilitative role of learning.  The most important ability a teacher needs to possess in this BYOT classroom is knowing how to ask the right questions to help students collaborate in inquiry, to decide on the right tools, and to create original products that show what they have learned.  The process of learning in this environment is as important as the end product, and the technology that is used is essential to the ultimate outcome of the learning experience.  In addition to being consumers of content, the students now become producers of information to be presented in exciting new ways.

An example of a transforming use of technology in a high school classroom that I observed was that after reading Shakespeare’s Othello, the teacher had the students watch the modern movie adaptation.  This would just be an adapting use of the technology; however, the experience became transforming as the students watched the movie and participated in a back channel discussion on their devices.  They compared the movie to the original play via Skype.  The teacher actively monitored the thread of the discussion on his own laptop and promoted further in-depth dialogue in the online chat by commenting and asking thought-provoking questions based on the students posts.  In this instance, the activity could not have been completed without the use of the technology, and the discussion progressed to higher-levels of thinking.

The Next Steps…

When you begin your BYOT initiative, realize that teachers and students will naturally move back and forth among the above uses of their technology tools.  If teachers, do not have a goal for BYOT or provide opportunities for students to own the learning, they will sometimes just stop bringing their devices to school.  Explore ways to implement BYOT as a regular part of the class day, and be open to transforming learning.

Please share your ideas for additional transforming uses of BYOT…

Although I continue to see additional iOS devices, iPods and iPads, in the hands of students in the elementary grades, one of the most popular technology devices continues to be the Nintendo DS and DSi.  In fact, all Nintendo DS models combined have made it the best selling handheld game console.  These handhelds are often a child’s first foray into personal technology, and they can be utilized effectively as learning tools within the BYOT classroom.  To learn more about these devices, I asked the experts – a group of fourth grade students!

There are relatively few educational games for the Nintendo DS and DSi compared to the overall inventory of available games.  However, the real benefits of the Nintendo DS and DSi are the free applications within these handheld devices.  The major difference between the Nintendo DS and DSi is that the DSi has the capability to access the Internet, but even without accessing the Internet, the Nintendo DSi offers some applications that can be used by creative teachers and students to facilitate learning.

1. Pictochat – With Pictochat, students can communicate with 15 other users over a distance of about 65 feet by sending each other pictures or words over a wireless connection.  Students can ask each other questions about concepts they are studying, such as math problems and possible solutions, and practice writing complete sentences and spelling words.  This communication could be the beginning of understanding appropriate netiquette within the safety of the classroom learning community.

2. Clock – With the clock tool, students could monitor how long they work on tasks in the classroom and set an alarm when they need to move on to the next activity.  This practice could help them develop more self-regulation as they monitor their classwork.

3. FlipNote Studio – FlipNote Studio is used to design animations.  Some classroom activities could be to animate simple machines, steps in a process, or mathematical problem-solving.  Students can add sounds to their animations including recording their voices.  Another feature of FlipNote Studio is called Light Box, an onion skin effect that is included with the animations so students can perfect their illustrations.  There is also a Copy tool so that students don’t have to keep drawing the same picture.  Students’ animations can then be saved as animated gifs onto an SD card or shared wirelessly with other students’ DSis.

4. DSi Camera – All DSis have a camera tool, which has several uses within the classroom.  The photos that students take can be saved to the device’s internal memory or to an SD card.  One fourth grade student took weekly photographs with her DSi of caterpillars that she had at home to document their metamorphosis into butterflies.  She uploaded these photos from the SD card into a class blog and wrote a description of each stage to share with the class. Since the DSi’s are able to connect to each other, students are able to share their photos with each other without the use of email.

There are different lens tools that students can use to edit their photos.  With the Graffiti Lens, students can draw on their pictures.  So, in the classroom, students could take pictures of a plant and label all of the parts. With the Mirror Lens, students can learn about symmetry by copying and duplicating aspects of their photos.

Other types of effects can be added to faces in students’ photos.  This can be used for inspiring characters for creative writing.  Students can also add frames to their photos with an area for adding text.  These photos could be saved to an SD card and loaded onto a computer for class projects.

5. DSi Sound – Students can record up to 10 seconds of sound on a DSi.  First, they can record their voices and sound waves illustrate the pitch of their voices so students can understand how sound travels in waves.  Students can record themselves reading and can slow down and speed up their tempo.  They can test their ability to read with expression or to answer questions in a recording.  Then they can edit these sounds with different effects.  They can even record their own sound effects to add to their Flipnote Studio animations.

A final note…The ultimate goal in the BYOT classroom is to transform learning experiences for students.  Students are empowered when they use their personal technology devices in new ways to support their learning.  As you encourage the use of Nintendo DSis in your classroom to promote collaboration and a sense of community, remember that many parents have not seen their children using their devices in the ways listed above.  Be willing to learn alongside your students to discover potential uses for the DSis in instruction.  After all, they are the experts!

For many of us, the teachers that we remember as being the most effective were those who had an innate understanding of how to help their students develop a sense of belonging in their classrooms while simultaneously maintaining high expectations for learning. I recently worked with a class of fourth grade students and their teacher for six weeks to design an online learning community that supported their face-to-face instructional activities. Based on our experiences, I compiled this list of ten strategies for developing online learning communities.

1. Teach Netiquette at the Onset of the Implementation.  Teachers and students have to negotiate and establish the rules of communication and etiquette that determine how an online learning community will function.  As students become more comfortable communicating online, they are more likely to form a class community.  With clear expectations about appropriate interaction, teachers can assist their students feel an acceptance that can motivate collaboration.
2. Incorporate Time for Social Discourse and Conversation.  One of our first online activities was to communicate through discussion forums.  We quickly noted that the students had some initial difficulty participating in online discussions about academic content.  However, when students described their Spring Break activities within an online discussion forum, they were able to relate and connect to each other’s posts in the discussion. According to Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder (2002), the sharing of common interests is necessary for operating within a community of practice, and it can lead to collaborative problem-solving and the development of shared understandings.  By incorporating social discussions we were able to establish and nurture communication that led to greater personal understanding, acceptance, and tolerance and eventually supported academic discussions.
3. Encourage Opportunities for Student Collaboration.  As the students worked with each other to develop original projects and products related to their learning standards, they were able to learn more about the content. From the onset of this design of the online learning community, the students requested opportunities to interact with their peers in collaborative work.   This entailed less risk because they were able to help each other while collectively developing an understanding about a topic.  In turn, these shared learning experiences strengthened the bond among the students within the online learning environment.
4. Provide the Students with Choices.  The students expressed that they wanted to make choices about the types of activities that they had to complete online.  They also wanted to decide how they should organize their collaborative work on their projects. When we developed activities for the students to complete online, we had to consider that new projects had to be explored, choices had to be incorporated into the design, and the students had to have opportunities for collaboration.  Students were able to use multiple modalities to show what they had learned, and their choices provided additional opportunities for differentiation and success.
5. Encourage Asynchronous Participation.  A benefit of our online learning community was its asynchronous nature.  The students communicated with each other, worked together on projects, or used links to locate information or complete activities. The asynchronous work had an influence on work within the face-to-face classroom in that the students had large portions of time dedicated to online collaboration.  Whole group lessons became shorter and were usually reserved for providing directions or sharing strategies.  Therefore, the students practiced and developed additional skills in self-directed learning and self-motivation.
6. Have Teachers Model the Learning.  The role of the teacher began to shift during the design of the online learning community.  She began to assume a more facilitative and less directive role in instruction, as she became a participant in the learning process.  She encouraged student interaction by asking questions and responding to their posts in online discussion. She was a mentor who suggested alternatives and possibilities, and she was an organizer who developed activities that engaged the students.
7. Practice the Technical Skills.  It was more complicated for the students to complete a new project or product when they had no previous experiences with the skills needed to complete that project. As the online learning community was continually modified and we introduced new opportunities for collaboration, we realized that the students needed practice time in order to utilize the new technology tools effectively.
8. Utilize Student Experts.  Online learning included some new challenges for the teacher and the students as the focus of instruction began to become more student-centered.  The participants were learning technical skills related to learning online that involved using new tools including features of the learning management system (LMS) as well as personal technology devices that they used to access the online learning community.  We utilized the students and their willingness to help each other as they learned how to work together.  This sharing of expertise helps to shape the online community of practice (Wenger, White & Smith, 2009), and as the members support each other, they develop new social bonds to assist in further collaboration.
9. Develop Understanding through Discussion Forums.  An important feature of the online learning community that encouraged collaboration and interaction was the purposeful use of discussion. Through online discussion, the students expressed information that they wanted to know more about.  As the students interacted and communicated with each other online, they were able to develop new understandings from these social practices.
10. Explore Personal Interests.  Throughout the implementation of the online learning community, the teacher and students began exploring and sharing their personal interests.  This communication helped to build the community, as students made meaning from their personal experiences and shared them with others (Wenger et al., 2009).  In addition, the students were enthusiastic about bringing their personal technology tools to school to facilitate their own styles of learning as they accessed the online learning environment.  The students were so knowledgeable about their devices and so willing to share this understanding with others that this small Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative caused the interaction and collaboration among the participants in this community of practice to develop rapidly.

I am astounded by the determination of teachers and students to develop effective learning communities in spite of all of the obstacles that they face each day.  The challenge of maintaining one’s individuality while effectively working as a member of a group is a reality of life and making that connection is a key ingredient of lifelong learning (Thomas & Brown, 2011).  Collaborating and interacting within an online community facilitated support for learning; furthermore, these practices enabled the students to feel satisfaction as they explored their personal passions and interests.

References

Thomas, D. & Brown, J. (2011). An new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. LaVergne, TN: Createspace.

Wenger, E, McDermott, R. & Snyder, W. (2002) Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge.  Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Wenger, E., White, N. & Smith, J. D. (2009) Digital habitats: Stewarding technology for communities. Portland, OR: CPsquare.