

Make no mistake: 2015 is the year in which each and every student in America’s K12 public school system will have a mobile device to use for curricular purposes, 24/7. For the majority of schools, one-to-one will be achieved because they will have adopted a BYOD policy: Bring your own device. Schools simply can’t afford to buy a computing device for every student: Bonds aren’t passing, and budgets are being slashed. And most school-age children are acquiring their own mobile computing devices for entertainment and communication. But there is no free lunch - surprise! Building on our previous column on the inevitability of BYOD, in this column we dive more deeply into the specific issues that schools will face as they adopt BYOD. Here we present a checklist, and we urge administrators to write down their position on each of these issues. Remember that no position is still a position, albeit a dangerous one.