Jordan, G. (2013, May 11). BYOD brings learning home.

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BYOD brings learning home: The 'bring your own

device' effort, flipped teaching and other techbased educational practices are taking root in the
Irvine Unified School District.
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[Siegel]'s classroom is one of only a few in the district to be experimenting with "bring your own
device" (BYOD), a policy that not only encourages students to bring their personal portable computers
to school, but also integrates these devices into daily classroom activities.
Benefits: "What we've really been able to do," Siegel said, "is pull away from textbooks, pull away
from segmented, isolated curriculum and really be able to move toward collaborative projects."
PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER; Sixth-grade students, from left, Anika Chaukkar,
Maggie Zhang and Claire Chung use a laptop to do research at Brywood Elementary in Irvine. The
students can bring in their electronic devices to school.; Students in Freddi Siegel's sixth-grade class
at Brywood Elementary School in Irvine can use laptops, tablets, iPods and mobile phones to do
research on their class projects.

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When entering Freddi Siegel's Brywood Elementary sixth-grade classroom mid-lesson, it can be
difficult to answer basic questions such as: What subject is being taught? How is this classroom
organized? Where is the teacher?
But this isn't a bad thing.
Siegel's head pops up. She has been talking with a group of students huddled around a collection of
laptop and tablet computers - devices that the students have brought from home.
Siegel's classroom is one of only a few in the district to be experimenting with "bring your own device"
(BYOD), a policy that not only encourages students to bring their personal portable computers to
school, but also integrates these devices into daily classroom activities.

Today, Siegel's students are making promotional videos for TROT, a nonprofit organization that rescues
retired racehorses. Using their personal devices, the students will write a script and storyboard the
project. Eventually, they'll use their tablet computers to help shoot and edit the video.
Though students stream in and out of the portable classroom, Siegel keeps an eye on them through a
video system on her computer, which uses the students' iPad cameras to help her monitor what
they're doing.
This is the first year that Siegel and her students have fully integrated BYOD into the classroom, but
the process already seems second nature to both her and the children.
Benefits: "What we've really been able to do," Siegel said, "is pull away from textbooks, pull away
from segmented, isolated curriculum and really be able to move toward collaborative projects."
These collaborative projects often include elements that allow for differentiated education, Siegel said,
by incorporating tactile, visual and auditory learning styles.
Students often feel more comfortable working with their own devices as well. This familiarity
encourages students to explore in ways they might not otherwise. During Siegel's TROT project, one
student downloaded a free storyboarding mobile application onto his device and began using it, no
questions asked.
Challenges: The same freedom BYOD provides can make it difficult to control. Interest in the policy
has spread, in part, because children around the country already are bringing their iPads and
smartphones to school - but often to play games. Siegel spent a significant amount of time at the
beginning of the year teaching "responsible digital citizenship," which lays out rules for proper and
improper device usage.
A larger hurdle to districtwide implementation, though, is figuring out how to ensure that all students
have access to portable computers and upgrading school wireless Internet capabilities to allow
hundreds or thousands of students to access networks simultaneously.
FLIPPED TEACHING
Stonegate Elementary sixth-grade teacher Donnie Mai has an hourlong period every day to teach his
students math. During that time, he has to review the previous day's homework, teach a new lesson,
assign sample problems, fix student mistakes and attempt to get the whole classroom up to speed.

But some students inevitably fall behind, and without enough time to both lecture and correct errors,
Mai sent students home to tackle homework that might reinforce their misunderstandings.
Seeking a way to extend his time spent helping students in the classroom, Mai discovered flipped
teaching, an educational method that allows for more teacher-assisted work in class by requiring
students to watch online video lectures after school as homework.
Benefits: Aside from affording educators more time to work closely with their students, flipped
teaching effectively gives children more time with their teachers.
Students who don't quite understand a concept during the first go-round can pause, rewind and
rewatch videos. Mai included practice problems within his video posts, requiring students to pause,
complete a bit of work, then continue watching to see whether their solutions were correct.
As an added benefit, when children became sick, they no longer fell far behind.
Challenges: Flipped teaching can be time-consuming. To create a single 15- to 20-minute post, Mai
would prepare a lesson, record himself teaching, edit the footage and then splice in extra scenes or
audio where he felt necessary. The process could take more than two hours.
Mai has reeled back his use of flipped teaching, but he still sees the value in it. In the future, teachers
collaborating to share posts between classrooms or schools could create a stockpile of videos, making
the technique less burdensome and more feasible.
ONLINE PORTFOLIOS
Canyon View Elementary sixth-grade teacher Jon Nakano can envision a day when a student's
educational experience, from kindergarten through 12th grade, would be catalogued online and
recallable at any moment.
Nakano is one of many district teachers who use online portfolio websites to assign, grade and track
students' work.
Benefits: An online repository can put everything a student needs in one place. Students field and
submit assignments digitally. Teachers post rubrics, give tests and grade submissions online.
Electronic message boards encourage students to ask questions, help each other and receive teacher
assistance outside of the classroom.

Because everything is in one place, students know exactly how they're performing, and when it comes
time for parent-teacher conferences, there are no surprises. The digital snapshot the program
provides also could help teachers understand the strengths and weaknesses of incoming students.
Challenges: Programs that allow teachers to keep a record of student work online are plentiful, but not
all are secure.
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
A year and a half ago, when Scott Bedley discovered that his class' art lessons were scaled back, he
refused to take it in stride. But Bedley didn't know how to teach art, so he decided to invite a guest
who did.
With this simple goal in mind, Bedley began using Skype and Google+ Hangout video chat sessions to
connect his students with talented professional artists from across the country. In short time, he
began bringing in guests in other professions, including a photographer, a journalist, a guest teacher
and an engineer.
Benefits: "The day of the expert-in-all-fields teacher is an impossibility," said Bedley, who recently was
named one of five Orange County Teachers of the Year. "The teacher should be a facilitator. What
better way to inspire than to bring in experts in a field?"
Searching for increasingly interactive video chat experiences, Bedley connected his students with
the Santa Clara University team competing in the Irvine-based U.S. Department of Energy Solar
Decathlon, a competition in which teams design and build solar-powered homes. The team took
students on a virtual field trip of a home they built in 2009.
Challenges: Bedley encourages teachers to reach out to a multitude of guests, no matter how unlikely
it is that the person will agree to a virtual visit. With fortitude and access to a webcam, any teacher
easily could adopt this technique.
Illustration
Caption: PHOTOS: PAUL BERSEBACH, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER; Sixth-grade students, from left,
Anika Chaukkar, Maggie Zhang and Claire Chung use a laptop to do research at Brywood Elementary
in Irvine. The students can bring in their electronic devices to school.; Students in Freddi Siegel's
sixth-grade class at Brywood Elementary School in Irvine can use laptops, tablets, iPods and mobile
phones to do research on their class projects.

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