Tim Clark on BYOT and Digital Citizenship

In this week’s Education Talk Radio broadcast, edTech Innovator of the Month Tim Clark discusses his experience with BYOT implementation.  According to Tim, the term BYOT is a versatile acronym intended to mean “Bring Your Own Technology, Tools, and Thinking.”

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Tim’s district in Forsyth County, GA, has been pioneering an inspiring and innovative initiative.  In order to address connectivity issues for students without access to WiFi outside of school, the district has been working with community members to create publicly available free WiFi.  These “free WiFi zones,” allow for at home BYOT for students that would otherwise have no internet access.

When the initiative began seven years ago, most mobile devices had not yet been released. Students were using gaming devices and laptops to pilot the program.  Since then the program has grown and expanded to adapt to new technologies such as tablets and smartphones. In order to ensure the success of the initiative, educators are given professional development to help them understand BYOT and incorporate it into their curriculum.  In addition, educators include digital citizenship education in their lessons to encourage student responsibility.   It is Tim’s hope that Forsyth County continues to be  a high performing school district.

Tim hosted a webinar on this topic for the EdTech Innovators community on December 19, 2013 at 5 PM ET.

Original Air-date:  01/13/2014

Hosted by Larry Jacobs of Education Talk Radio.

Listen to the interview below.