Staff Ed
In the recent years, there has been a significant push for increasing technology within the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The newly created Bring Your Own Technology Program, which provides students with the option of utilizing their own personal technology in the classroom, is not a reasonable program for Mira Costa.
Starting next year, the Mira Costa administration will implement the new BYOTP. It will allow all students to use their individual technological devices in the classroom. For students who cannot afford such devices, the administration will then theoretically provide respective students with the equipment if desired.
The usage of technology in the classroom will ultimately lead to distractions for students. With the additional devices in classes, distracted students will become more common. According to a survey conducted on high school students by the University of Haifa, 95 percent of high school students admitted to using technology during class in order to send emails or texts. Other major causes of distraction were social media sites which most students use daily, according to the survey.
With technology prevalent, inefficient multitasking while studying is inevitable for students. Ohio State University conducted an experiment with 32 college students for 28 days to test whether multitasking is an efficient method of completing tasks. Each student carried a cell-phone or other device and reported on their activity.
Results showed that when students used media while multitasking, their cognitive needs were not met due to the distractions of technology. Clearly, there is an inverse relationship between multitasking and student productivity that the BYOTP will bring to campus.
Along with distractions, the lack of full cooperation among teachers to integrate the current technology at Costa makes spending the money for personal devices not reasonable for parents. If students won’t use technology in all of their classes, the money spent on the devices will not be put to good use. There must be uniformity among teachers on how much the new BYOTP will be utilized in the classroom if parents are spending the money to buy their child a completely new device.
Despite the current issues, technology has the potential to benefit the classroom in the future. Instead of approaching integration with a blanket approach, the school should offer specific classes in which technology is encouraged, taught by teachers comfortable with creating a curriculum based on relatively new technology. Students could have the option to sign up for these classes during scheduling.
Many different aspects of the new Bring Your Own Technology Program must be considered before the system is fully carried out. The issues of distraction, lack of uniformity of the usage of the program and unnecessary parent spending need to be taken into account.
The program presents the future promise of a more collaborative classroom, but as of right now, there are still glitches that need to be worked out.
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