Bonus: Watch the video of this episode on YouTube!

Show Notes

Have a vision for the learning that’s going to happen – for teachers, parents and students so everyone knows why.

Mindset is so important – not just about substitution – so as a coach, having that mindset is critical.

Make sure the rollout plan in clear for all stakeholders so that everyone knows whats coming.

Gradual release of devices, start with a couple of grade levels first.

Give laptops to teachers before the students so they have a chance to get to know them before the kids.

Don’t get distracted by the cost and the hardware and logistics (although this seems like the most important thing at the start, it actually fades into the background).

Most importantly consider the types of learning you want students to be doing – including the software it will take to make that happen.

Make sure to think about the support for the new types of learning – teachers aren’t expected to do this without help or support, that’s why we have coaches.

Coaches provide learning support not technical support, considering the human resource side of things is critical for success – need dedicated IT people and dedicated academic people.

Think about the infrastructure needed to make the program successful – things like wifi network.

Parent education – how are we informing parents and helping them understand the vision for learning with technology.

Important to consider the multiple languages of the parents in your school community.

Comparison between BYOD and school managed.
Really hard for a coach to support among so many devices, having preferences as a coach means you know more about one over the other, more barriers to learning, less creative potential because teachers can’t be certain about what technical abilities different devices have (plus storage capacity, multiple apps that students have access to, age of the device). Disparity among students – heavy creativity tasks get dumped on the kids who have “better” devices (eg: no movie maker on PCs so all the kids with Macs get stuck with that).

“BYOD brings the learning down to the lowest common denominator”.

Suggestion: at least BYO to a specific set of specifications (rather than just anything).

Google Apps for Education is a great way to level the playing field if you have BYOD.

Coaches role is putting this all into action.

Right now tech is old wine in new bottles – as a coach I can see what’s possible in the future, and that’s what makes our job as coaches so fabulous, and when other people see what’s happening it spreads.

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