BYOD Project - Pre-Project Data Collection

This is part two of a series of posts about the BYOD Project.

Teacher Surveys
All teachers involved in the BYOD Project participated in BYOD Pre-Project Teacher survey.
The key findings were:

• 50% of teachers stated that they “Tend to agree” with the statement that they are satisfied overall with their experience of technology at EBHS.
• 66% of teachers claimed they “Tend to agree” that the school’s technology use has enhanced their teaching.
• 66% of teachers were “Neutral” that the school’s technology use is an example of best practice
• 80% of teachers have their own BYOD.
• 70% of teachers bring their BYOD everyday
• Barriers to using BYOD devices included slow internet, equity issues, students bringing devices and dealing with multiple types of devices.
• Teachers reported a number of ways technology has assisted their teaching including increased engagement, provision of differentiated instruction, resource sharing, organization, more timely feedback, and increased creativity.
• Teachers use a range of strategies in incorporate BYOD in their classes, for example internet research, word processing, spreadsheets, online quizzes, game creation, and examining real life examples and case studies
• Strategies that could be implemented at the whole school level included professional learning related to technology, improving student technology skills, communicating school-wide expectations that students bring their devices, faster internet and loan computers.
• Teachers reported high or very high level skills in email, instant messaging, social media, internet searching, and presentation software, low to moderate skills in conferencing, podcasts, RSS feeds, e-portfolios, web development, library search engines, multi-user games.

Student Focus Groups
Engaging with an academic partner during our action research journey enabled us to get guidance and feedback for a research methodology, it also provide insight into emerging research and introduced innovative practice to be implemented in the classroom. 

Dr Jane Hunter is from UWS, where she works in the areas of curriculum, pedagogy and technology integration in learning. She came to the school on in May to run two focus groups with 8-10 of our boys regarding technology use in the classroom. The sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed and then a report outlining the main themes was written. This provided pre-project data and information to provide direction for the project. Topics discussed include weaknesses and strengths in use of technology for learning currently, the use of technology to assist in: collaboration, creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, etc, the use of technology for sharing work with the outside world/community, differences between the technology skills students use at home and the skills they are “allowed”/expected to use at school, infrastructure/systems issues that make using technology difficult at school, opportunities/possibilities that students see in using technology – ideas, programs, strategies, processes, the value of technology to future employment and student perceptions of staff technology skills as compared to their own.

Pre-Project Lesson Collection
The last part of the pre-project phase was the collection of a couple of lesson plans outlining ways that technology is currently integrated into lessons. Following the submission of the lesson teachers met to discuss them with reference to some of the research and professional reading we had been looking at. A few samples of lesson plan proformas from the University of Sydney were emailed to teachers to use to write lesson plans.