BYOD is something new this year to Notre Dame Academy, something a lot of schools are starting to incorporate into their daily routine.

 BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device and requires students to have a laptop or tablet on them during the school day. Some people love it and some people hate it.

English teacher Steven Starry said, “It’s the way most schools are going.”

Teaching college credit English and Junior English, Starry uses BYOD every day and  incorporates it into his lesson plans.

“It is easy to incorporate it into my lesson. Since I teach writing, it makes it easier. It takes the place of a textbook,” said Starry.

Starry likes BYOD because he can do everything in the comfort and familiarity of his classroom. He doesn’t have to go to the computer lab and go through the pain of trying to find a lab that’s open and making sure no other class will be in there. There still is a problem with trying to get iPads for the classroom since there is a very limited number of them.

However, some programs may not work on all the devices, and some sites require java, which iPads don’t have.

“That isn’t too big of a problem,” Starry said.

With BYOD he can tell the students to get their laptops out and do what they need to do. Starry also likes it because it saves trees and is really nice to send students their assignments electronically They can send their responses right back; he grades them online, and that’s it. No more keeping track of papers.

One thing that is hard for Starry to do is to make sure everyone is on task doing what they are suppose to do. He can’t look at all twenty-five screens at once. He just needs to trust that his students are doing the right thing and following along.