BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

 

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)

By Megan Cleary

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is a policy where students or employees can use their own personal electronic devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smartwatches) in class or a workplace setting. BYOD has a lot of security concerns especially in a workplace setting. In a school or school library setting, the bigger concerns are how to keep kids focused on the task at hand, and equality. In an NPR story for All Things Considered they spoke to teachers who let their students bring devices in the class for learning activities, research, and even designated texting time. They found that letting students use their smartphones for school-related things or at designated times reduced the amount of time that they were sneaking their phones and getting distracted by them (“Some Schools…”). The equality issue comes into play when not all of the students have their own personal devices. While as Mark Ray noted in his article, most BYOD programs in schools do not require kids to have their own device and teachers or teacher librarians do not have curriculum in which the kids would need to use their own device, I can still see some issues with this particularly in school settings where the kids come from many different walks of life (8). There could be a lot of shame or embarrassment for the kids who don’t have a device.

Libraries of all types (school, academic, special, and public) can make sure that they have created an environment that makes it easy and accessible for people to use their own devices in the library. One important factor is making sure that the internet service that the library employs has enough bandwidth to host every user’s device (LaGarde and Johnson, 41). Users will quickly get frustrated if the internet connection is slow and they feel they can’t get anything done in the library. Another important point  is making sure that the librarians and library service staff have a good working knowledge of the latest devices and technology and can assist users when they have questions about their devices or need help figuring out how to accomplish everyday tasks on them. Another thing to consider would be making sure you have charging ports available throughout the library and potentially charging cords to lend out. 

Personal technology devices are seemingly ubiquitous these days and libraries should welcome their presence and find ways to incorporate them into the workings of the library instead of seeing them as competition in information seeking. Librarians will always be needed to aid in the seeking of information, in all of its formats. We just need to be able to adapt to the changes of the world of information and never stop learning.

Works Cited

LAGARDE, JENNIFER, and DOUG JOHNSON. "Why do I Still Need a Library when I Have One in My Pocket?" Teacher Librarian, vol. 41, no. 5, 2014, pp. 40-44. EBSCOhost; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, https://login.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?auth=shibboleth&url=https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=96678455&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 9 May 2023.

Ray, Mark. "Byo what?" Library Media Connection, vol. 31, no. 4, 2013, pp. 8-10. EBSCOhost; Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, https://login.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?auth=shibboleth&url=https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lxh&AN=84557814&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 9 May 2023.

     "Some Schools Actually Want Students To Play With Their Smartphones In Class." All Things

            Considered, 3 Oct. 2012. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps       

             /doc/A304772762/OVIC?u=cclc_palomar&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=9fba9583. 

            Accessed 9 May 2023.