Not to repeat myself over and over (but I will anyway!), but thanks so much to everyone who came out last night to participate in our first #BYOTchat. We got a lot of participation, and I’m sure it will only grow from there.

The topic of the first chat was “What should be the first steps to take in implementing BYOT?” and even before you get to any actual actions, setting expectations for all participants was the first place we started. Getting all your stakeholders (administrators, teachers, support staff, parents, and students) all on the same page is hugely important to getting everyone to buy in to the idea, as not everyone is always sold on the use of technology in the classroom (especially cell phones!). @cybraryman1 has some great resources on Acceptable Use Policies.

However, the distinction between “acceptable” to “responsible” use is an important one – students (and teachers!) must learn how their actions in the digital space impact the real world. You can’t have students goofing off with the technology in class, and everything you do online leaves behind a digital footprint which can be found and used by anyone with access. What it means to be responsible in the digital space is an idea that’s still being developed, but having an open conversation about consequences and pitfalls online is going be a real help to students.

But not only students – adults too! We typically know what it means to be responsible (online and off), but taking the time to crystalize it is helpful in passing on those skills to students while they use tech in this classroom.

If all of this feels a bit “high-brow,” what it leads to is the real need for Professional Development (PD). Everyone who participated last night was in resounding agreement that the only way you can implement an effective BYOT program is by supporting teachers. You need to make it easy to integrate technology into the classroom, and you need to provide the resources to do so. @hauquitz suggested the development of an app list, broken down by device, subject, and price.

PD is not merely a “teaching of teachers” – it’s also a forum for teachers to connect with each other. As @mluhtala said “Don’t try to convince the unconvinceable – just work with the open minded ones. The rest’ll come EVENTUALLY” – and it’s true. The early adopters become the ones who test different techniques, and PD becomes an avenue for them to share their experiences with other teachers. Once they see that, yes, it is, in fact, possible to use technology for learning in the classroom, they’ll do it. Twitter itself has become a great resource for that as well. As I said myself, sometimes the best cheerleaders for BYOT are other teachers.

Ah – but not just teachers: STUDENTS! Kids are increasingly more tech-savvy than their older brethren, and they have a lot they can share with us. I mentioned myself that we have a lot of students in Time To Know classrooms who support the teachers with the technology. “Students must be at the center of district decisions. Teachers must be open to student point of view.”

Students can also do their own tech support. “@dimatiata is the @nchslmc Director of Mobile Devices. He’s 17. Kids can handle it!” Which is I really think is awesome – go @dimatiata! Tech support would be inundated with requests if every problem you had with your phone went to them.

Once you’ve laid the groundwork, the last thing is getting the network to support this level of bandwidth and connectivity. @SteveHayes_RB60 asked me if we needed to support 2-3 devices per student; I responded that they tend to have that many, but that you didn’t necessarily need to support that much bandwidth. However, I was quickly corrected – @msmith833 didn’t agree, and @MyTakeOnIt said he recommended aiming for 3 devices per user. I would amend my statement now to say you should aim for 3:1 but don’t fret if you don’t get there – supporting any level of BYOT is a step in the right direction.

This discussion lead to the question of control – @msmith said she was fighting with admins who want to get control of students, and even some parents don’t think devices should be used in schools. The fear of student distraction is a strong one, but one that should be easily overcome with proper integration. @MyTakeOnIt and I both made similar comments about technology being engaging on its own, and students won’t be distracted if they’re too busy using them for good. @mluhtala morphed a quote into “Don’t let media distract from learning, let learning distract from media!”

And that’s really the point here, isn’t it? Technology fosters more engaged learning, and ultimately better learning.  And that’s why we want to do this.

There was a ton of mini-conversations about smaller topics not covered here, and I highly recommend you read through the archive.

I look forward to doing this again next week! Look for a poll about next week’s topic on Monday.

[Cross-posted @ It's Time!]