The BYOD Approach Comes of Age

While quite a few K-12 school districts now have 1:1 programs to provide a Chromebook or other digital device to every student for classwork, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) programs have found favor in many other districts for combining that same sort of access with lower expenditures and fewer technical hassles.

Initial concerns that students would use their devices to play games, watch cat videos, or access social media during school have been dispelled by strict use policies, detailed communication with parents and families, and efforts to instruct children on responsible behavior both online and in the classroom.

Although there is usually flexibility to allow students to use a device with which they’re most comfortable, in some districts smartphones are not among the permitted devices. The preference is for something with a screen large enough for students to write and create diagrams. If a child doesn’t have an appropriate device of their own—or doesn’t want to bring it to school—they may be given access to a district-supplied Chromebook or tablet.

“We recognize that students are living in a digital age, and BYOD helps students establish the foundations of digital citizenship,” Superintendent Robert Shaps, of Mamaroneck Union Free School District, Westchester County, NY, told the Associated Press.

Lack of Ed-Tech Transparency Costs $3B

A new study by the Technology for Education Consortium (TEC) indicates school districts overspend on education technology by at least $3 billion every year, primarily because of a lack of transparency on the part of ed-tech vendors.

Prices on Chromebooks, iPads, and Accelerated Reader 360 licenses vary widely from district to district, with vendor discounts applied to the total cost of purchases muddying what’s actually paid per device or user. In its study of data from 130 school districts, TEC found that prices could differ 20%-40% for both hardware and software, without any correlation to district size.

In the case of Chromebooks, for example, some districts shelled out up to $90 more than others for the same device and service bundle. The TEC study estimates that a single uniform price for Chromebooks across districts could save a total of about $500 million per year.

Google Ending Play for Education App

Google Play for Education, created in 2013, allowed college students to buy or rent textbooks with the flexibility to read the content on a mobile device. In the K-12 world, it was an app designed for the classroom organized by subject and grade that came at a reasonable cost.

Even though Google intends to continue supporting the service, it will stop selling licenses for the app on March 14. The app was only available to a limited number of tablets, but the company plans to continue making educational apps that work on all Android tablets available in the Google Play Store.

Play for Education was launched to promote Android tablets in schools. Since Google’s Chromebook has become the device of choice for many districts, the new focus could be on changes to the operating system that would provide even more classroom tools, according to Kristin Decarr in an article for Education News.

“While nothing official has been said about why the company decided to do away with Play for Education, an unnamed Google partner executive believes the reason to include capability issues, such as the limited number of student profiles that can be put onto a single device, in addition to competition from Apple’s iPad,” Decarr wrote.

Privacy Group Complains about Google

Google has become a dominant player in educational technology, with its Chromebook making up 51% of device sales to schools in the third quarter of 2015. Part of the reason for this rise is that Chromebooks are available to school districts at a fraction of the cost of other devices and come complete with free software used by more than 50 million students and teachers worldwide.

That’s an issue for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit privacy organization, which filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing Google of collecting and data-mining Internet searches by children. The group claimed Google is using some of the collected information to sell targeted ads.

In addition, the EFF said Google is tracking user activity through the Chrome Sync feature, which automatically is turned on in Chromebooks. That tracking function is being used without parental consent, the group argued.

“In some of the schools we’ve talked to parents about, there’s literally no ability to say, ‘No,’” Nate Cardozzo, staff attorney for the EFF, told The Washington Post.

Google countered with a blog post claiming its educational apps comply with the law, while admitting that it does collect data of student activities to improve its products. In addition, both the Future of Privacy Forum, which authored the student privacy pledge that was signed by Google, and the Software and Information Industry Association sided with Google.

“We have reviewed the EFF complaint but do not believe it has merit,” said Jules Polonetsky, executive director of the Future of Privacy Forum.

Along with lack of parental consent, school districts are also not informing parents of online service policies. A 2013 study of found that 95% of the surveyed school districts relied on an online cloud service, but only 25% informed parents.

“Despite publicly promising not to, Google mines students’ browsing data and other information, and uses it for the company’s own purposes,” Cardozo said in a statement to CBS News. “Making such promises and failing to live up to them is a violation of FTC rules against unfair and deceptive business practices. Minors shouldn’t be tracked or used as guinea pigs, with their data treated as a profit center. If Google wants to use students’ data to ‘improve Google products,’ then it needs to get express consent from parents.”

Chromebooks Become the Tool of Choice

The Apple iPad may still be a trendy option, but with 2.5 million shipped to schools in the first six months of 2015, the Google Chromebook has become the tool of choice for many. There are several reasons Chromebook has become such a steady performer, according to Stephen Noonoo of eSchool News.

Noonoo discussed the device during an episode of Education Talk Radio. Part of the Chromebook story is that Google is a brand to which even Apple users turn. Students are comfortable with the Google Apps for Education and use them in class regularly.

It doesn’t hurt that the Chromebook is less expensive than other devices, such as the iPad, and replacement parts are cheaper to obtain. Cost and dependability make it a safe choice for schools. In addition, there are plenty of easily accessible training and professional development tools available for the Chromebook.

“Whereas some devices get bogged down and begin to crawl after years of downloading and heavy use (and others feel less useful thanks to planned obsolescence), Chromebooks are capable of lasting for years without much noticeable change,” Noonoo wrote.

Google Starts Chromebook Lending Library

Google already considers its Chromebook a low-cost laptop alternative for the classroom. Now, the company is taking that a step further, creating a notebook Lending Library that will provide students free access to a device whenever they happen to need it.

The online giant is placing a café-style kiosk at 12 U.S. colleges and universities for three days in the initial phase of the Lending Library project, which will run through October. Devices are available at the kiosk on a first-come, first-served basis and can be kept for the duration of its stay on the campus. Students will be charged for the devices if they are not returned on time.

“The Lending Library is a bit like your traditional library, but instead of books, we’re letting students borrow Chromebooks [no library cards needed],” Lindsay Rumer of the Chrome marketing team told Digital Trends. “Students can use a Chromebook during the week for life on campus—whether it’s in class, during an all-nighter, or browsing the Internet in their dorm.”

The operating system is cloud-based, allowing students to switch back and forth between devices with a Google account, username, and password. It also is a way for students to become more familiar using the Google operating system and devices and possibly become more dedicated Google customers, according to the Digital Trends report.