Remember those days when you used to go to school with some notebooks in your bags and a couple of pens and you used to have to sit there and write… yes actually write. Remember them? Well the days of learning at schooling are much different today to say the six years ago when I was graduating from high school. The thought of using a laptop at school never once came into mind however today the use of laptops and furthermore all forms of digital devices are “just as much of the culture of education as are pens and papers” (Wright 2013). That’s right, long gone are the days of scribbling on the pages of notebooks for hours on end of your high schooling education – digital devices now play a critical role in the daily high school class.
I was at too late of an age at high school to receive one of the government provided laptops when its new education scheme came into fruition but with the close of the scheme in 2013, there has been many questions raised about the future of education and the presence of the laptop. The problem which arose with the federal governments scheme was that there were many uncertainties surrounding the costs, especially when many of the laptops over time had to be replaced because of maintenance issues and that the technology could become outdated (Wright 2013). On top of this school funding to maintain the costs of the laptops for each student became unsustainable heading into the future.
With the laptop scheme now dismissed by the Federal Government and a new embrace of ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) for high school students, there now comes the challenge of what happens with a new inequity among students. Today at “most public high schools students in Years 8 and 9 who missed out on a government laptop are now required to bring an iPad, a tablet or a laptop that must be compatible with school’s existing Wi-Fi network” (Smith 2014). With this though comes the problem of what happens to those students who come from families unable to afford these digital devices. While we can say that yes, in a digital age most families would potentially have some sort of digital device available for use, there are still those less fortunate who cannot afford such devices. The government must work together with its public high schools to find a balance between those students fortunate enough to afford their own device and those less fortunate. Though where does this balance come from?
While I think that BYOD saves a considerable amount of costs for schools while also providing less of a hassle for students in regards to the storing of content on their own devices. When we consider those unable to afford this BYOD concept, the Federal Government should aim to provide funding for public schools to purchase laptops available for hire or to a cheaper extent (which I feel will be must effective), is to provide plug in hard drives. Portable hard drives will present a significant decrease in costs while more importantly allowing students of families who cannot afford to BYOD, have a technology which still remains personal, portable and usable with school owned laptops and computers in the classrooms. The portable hard drive may just be the balance needed for now in order to respond to the concerns which comes with BYOD for those students who don’t own their own device.
References
Smith, A 2014, ‘End of free laptop program means it’s BYO device now for many high school students’, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 February, viewed 13 April 2015, http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/end-of-free-laptop-program-means-its-byo-device-now-for-many-high-school-students-20140220-334bz.html
Wright, J 2013, ‘Computer cash in lap of chaos’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 February, viewed 13 April 2015, http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/computer-cash-in-lap-of-chaos-20130202-2dr65.html
Look mum I made a blog... 