Duration: 1:22
Teacher and e-learning leader, Kate Friedwald (nee Olliff) explains the information provided for parents at Wairakei School to introduce a BYOD trial for Year 5/6 students in 2014. This includes a parent information evening and information on the school website Room 1 2014 BYOD trial .
So, we decided the best way to implement things were to put it on the children’s stationery list. So the iPad went on there along with a set of required apps. Now the apps were based on creative and productivity apps that we felt could increase the children’s learning, and not just be a substitution. So it was a core set of apps that would help every child in the class. There’s other, what we call, recommended apps which I direct certain parents to to fill certain needs. Those apps are purchased through the school, and we purchase them through our VPP, our volume purchasing account through Apple.
Early on in the piece of implementing it, we held a parent information evening. That allowed us to present the idea to parents, to answer any of their questions, to assure them that it wasn’t going to replace learning; it was going to facilitate and enhance learning. We then, once we’d had our class placements done for the year, I met one-on-one with each student and parent in the holidays. We got together and went over, we did things like update their settings. We put in their Internet, made sure it was working. We set up their email, and that meant when the child arrived on day one of the year, things at a technical point of view were set up, the child was ready to get in, use their apps, and start learning.