Blended Learning through BYOT

As we launch into the world of Blended Learning, we have uncovered 3 enablers in for our first phase of implementation.

1. Professional Learning
2. Bandwidth
3. Access

After doing a lot a of research with Eric Sheninger and Mal Lee, I was really reminded that the success of BYOT largely is dependant on our teachers.  As such the first enabler is professional Learning.

Professional Learning

I have had a reasonable amount of experience in designing, running and evaluating Professional Learning in a previous role.  For this context, we choose a model of Professional Learning that is light, self paced, sequential and applicable to the work our teachers will do today, tomorrow and next year.  This has looked like:

• In house, after school optional sessions
• Widely advertised with 3 or 4 very specific outcomes
• Starting at 3:30 and finishing at 4:00
• Using an instructional model of, I model, we do, you do and I support
• Varying who presents
• Designing future sessions on feedback from the current session

The easiest enabler for us is Bandwidth

Due to some thorough work in the past, the entire school has Wi-Fi coverage.  We had a connection of 100 Mps, which was being maxed out every day.  Using some diagnostic tools we could demonstrate that our link was saturated and needed to be upgraded.

We let the data do the talking and now our internet connection is twice what it was before!

Access refers to devices and cloud software

The cloud software will largely be through the Canvas LMS for teaching and learning, the Office 365 suite for productivity and selected web tools for collaboration, interactivity and feedback.  This part was easy.

The BYOT will be with our Year 9 students for next year.  We are targeting one grade for our initial launch as part of our Year 9-12 strategy.  I have positioned this in the work that our local college, Tafe and University are doing in the area around Blended Learning.

I have shared this resource with families to help them understand the benefits of what we are attempting to do:

Top-10-Benefits-of-BYOD-in-School-Wireless-Networks

Your thoughts

I would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with BYOT, please reply below if you have the time.  I am planning that my next post with define the difference between BYOD and BYOT.

Resources and Quotes

Below is a list of interesting articles that certainly help teachers, leaders and parent understand that BYOT is far more about trust and the change of control rather than just technology.

• the-drivers-of-successful-byod.html
• tips-for-byod-equity.html
• how-byod-programs-can-fuel-inquiry-learning
• leading-in-the-digital-age
• parent-fact-sheets/bring-technology-byot/
• byod-in-the-classroom-6-advantages
• obvious-benefits-of-byod-in-education/
• the-importance-of-byot

Quotes, 

"It is however slowly but surely fundamentally changing in that small cadre of schools globally that have succeeded in normalising the 100% uptake of BYOT, with there being a pronounced shift to the more student centred, collaborative mode of teaching described by Lee and Ward in Collaboration in learning: transcending the school walls (2013)." (Mal Lee, 2013)

In the school giving the child and the home the choice of the kit it is saying it has moved the from the traditional insular control over mode of schooling to one where the school will work collaboratively with all the ‘teachers’ of the young in providing an ever apposite education. (Mal Lee, 2013)

The critical conditions. Five conditions are critical to the sustained natural growth in learning with the digital (Lee, Broadie and Twining, 2018).

1. Ready access to the personal, preferably mobile technology
2. Digital connectivity
3. Support, empowerment and trust 
4.   Largely unfettered use
5. Self-directed learning, able to collaborate when desired (Lee, Broadie and Twining, 2018).  (Lee and Broadie, 2018)

It allows the students to continue to direct much of their learning with the digital, to use the tools they know and use 24/7/365, that they have tailored for their learning style and to use those parts of their kit they – and not the experts - believe will best do the job at hand.  (Lee and Broadie, 2018)

In working with the student’s technologies, the teachers quickly recognise the individual learner’s interests and capabilities, able to tailor their teaching accordingly. Importantly it also provides the school with a bridge to the families, providing an insight into the capabilities and resources of each, making it that much easier to support and add value to the efforts of the families.  (Lee and Broadie, 2018)

In exploring the work of those exceptional schools (Lee and Levins, 2016) that for some time have encouraged their students to use their own technologies the authors were struck by their willingness to genuinely collaborate with their families, to value and build on the out of school learning, to remove from the curriculum material already learned and to integrate the use of the digital in all areas of learning, and all school operations.  (Lee and Broadie, 2018)

It is most assuredly not just about the technology or the improving student performance, it is about the desired totality and how BYOT will assist your school realise its shaping educational and digital vision. (Lee 2015)