The bring-your-own-device trend is well known among the business world. Companies are allowing employees to use their personal technology, which is often more advanced than what is available in the office, and reaping the benefits of high productivity and lower costs. However, the business world is far from the only market where a BYOD strategy makes sense, just ask Kentucky's Kenton County School System.
A recent CITEworld article profiled the almost 10-year project to improve the district's technology solutions. Back in 2004, it started allowing students to bring their own laptops, however, the price point made it very difficult for every student to have one. The school system stuck with a strategy of only allowing it for team projects until 2010, when the iPad was released.
The lower cost made it easier to invest in tablets for the classroom and more students had them to bring in.
According to Vicki Fields, the district's CIO, since implementing a BYOD strategy and seeing the devices in classrooms, students are more engaged in their assignments.
"I hear and see when I talk to the children that they enjoy coming to school more because it's fun," Fields told the news source. "That supports their ability to learn. That's a change from the past, particularly in the high school level. All of that has opened up through technology and having access to those devices and being mobile."
She went on to say that she envisions a day where the iPad deployment researched the hands of students at every level helping students to learn and collaborate.
