Many schools are two to three years into being a 1 to 1 device school. Many lessons have been learned since this implementation has begun. The Prince William County District in Northern VA has given all students in kindergarten and 1st grade iPads and 2nd through 5th Laptops, just like many school districts in California. There are many unseen challenges, parents think it's great the kids have these devices to learn on but what they do not see is the behind-the-scenes challenges schools and their staff have in keeping these devices working.
Ther is the issue of the internet connection, and how it is usually difficult to fund, because people don't see it, they don't see it as infrastructure. Another problem with BYOD is that staff sometimes are not properly trained in dealing with tech issues that may arise, many of the tech problems are falling on untrained library staff. The districts do not have enough IT personnel, so the library staff get the task of troubleshooting devices. This time spent working on devices is taking away actual time the staff could be devoting to library tasks. There is also the issue of how kids treat school-issued devices, sometimes when first issued they try to treat it as their own personal device, thankfully there are blockers in place to prevent students from downloading certain apps and going to certain websites. At my school, students are taught that devices are to be treated like any other school-issued item, and they are constantly reminded that the school can look at their search history.
Another issue that seems to come up often is students breaking their devices or not bringing them to school. It is against the law to prevent a student access to learning materials, so we cannot tell a student sorry, you don't get to learn today if they do not have a working device. The school must provide a loaner iPad or another device, at least in CA. All of these tasks in my public-school fall on the Library Tech and the assistant.
All in all BYOD or every child being assigned a device can be a great tool to use in the classroom, but districts need to figure out the technology side of being a 1 to 1 school and better train their employees to keep these devices working.
Thompson, G. (2024a, April 10). EBSCO Information Services. OCLC Support. https://help.oclc.org/Library_Management/EZproxy/EZproxy_database_stanzas/Database_stanzas_E/EBSCO_Information_Services
It is eye opening to know that often the librarian or library tech personnel are responsible for the electronic devices. Hopefully, they provide the training that the staff needs or it could be overwhelming.
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