BYOD and Google Docs

Laura Fitzgerald's Government students used BYOD and Google Docs together! Students were allowed to use their own devices or laptops provided by the school to work in pairs collaboratively to complete a chart listing characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of 3 different reconstruction plans. Students were assigned a column to work on and every 5-10 minutes they rotated to a different column. Students used their notes and other resources to edit what was previously entered then add their own information.

Several students commented on how much they liked working this way and they can't wait to have an opportunity to do it again!

A Testimonial

Image: Blogsofera via commons.wikimedia.org

"There's a fine line between expecting appropriate behavior and forcing students to fit into a self-projected model of learning. With the introduction of BYOD, I would see students with their phones smiling and think: What are they doing?! That's not the research I assigned them. However, I came to find out that they were enjoying looking up information on their phones. They were excited that they could collaborate with their partner via GoogleDocs message system. What? Sure, the topic of conversation would stray, but that's where my vigilance as their teacher and facilitator had to factor in. Don't ever want to go back!"

Mr. Vawter
Griffin GT/ILA

BYOD Making Headlines

See our teachers and students in the news...

Theatre Department

Wow! BYOD has added unlimited possibilities to our Theatre productions! One of the main ways that we are utilizing BYOD is by using backchannels. Backchannels are conversations that are occurring between audience members during a lecture or in our case, a performance! During performances in my classes, students will use Twitter to tweet their critiques of the performance as it is happening.
This allows them to be processing the performance while it is occurring and forces them to be clear and concise (144 character limit). We label each performing group with a non-sense hash tag that is a combination of their names so that they can search the tag when they come off stage and read all comments.
I have also had students use BYOD resources to take pictures of their own faces expressing various emotions to create a sort of "emotion collage".
And finally, I have allowed students to film in-class performances so that they can watch and critique themselves at home. Though we have had to be very strict about only using our own devices to film ourselves to protect student from having their performances placed online by someone else. Classroom management is key to successful BYOD use. FHS Theatre, Lucas Roeschley

BYOD in PreCal!

In Jordan Byrd's PAP PreCal class at Liberty, students were able to use their devices seamlessly while working on a factoring practice activity.  Some of the material in this activity was review and some was new.  Students used their devices to look up formulas for sum of cubes and difference of cubes.  They were also able to use their devices to look up examples on the Internet to help them work through other types of factoring problems.  Students were able to sit in groups of 2 to 4 students so that they could share devices if needed.  This is a quick, easy, and effective way to incorporate BYOD into the math classroom.