Notre Dame Academy has made a large jump in their educational system of this year by implementing the BYOD program into the school.

BYOD is the program that allows students to bring in their own devices, such as laptops and tablets, for the use of research, note-taking and writing papers.

BYOD comes with many positives, such as using graphing tools and having easy access to information for homework assignments and projects.

“It’s just another tool,” said physics teacher Mrs. Nelson.

Mrs. Nelson teaches regular physics, honors physics and IB physics, and so far during this school year she has only used BYOD in her IB classes.

Her IB physics II class uses BYOD for note-taking, experimenting and researching.

Nelson said, “IA’s used to be done by hand and mailed in,” but IA’s are now done via the internet, which saves paper and time.

Nelson said when her class is working on a project, they will use their devices all week, but she also said, “We could go two to three weeks without using them at all.”

Nelson believes that technology has been beneficial to the school, and she appreciates that she can get quick and easy feedback from her students’ parents via email.

“It makes things so much easier,” said Nelson.

Nelson hasn’t implemented BYOD into her honors and regular physics classes yet, but she isn’t opposed to it either.

“It’s not that I don’t allow them; it just hasn’t been needed,” she said.

But in the class she does use BYOD, she said, “It’s not a problem,” enforcing the BYOD program.

However, Nelson does have some concerns about BYOD.

“My room isn’t conducive for monitoring screens,” Nelson said.

Monitoring screens is important to make sure that the students remain on task and are on websites that are allowed.

A good way to monitor screens is to have the students turn their desk around so that the screens are facing the teacher or the teacher can teach from the back of the room to see the screens.