To: Mr. James L. Doolan, President of the Board of Education and Mr. Stephen H. Guthrie, Superintendent
Limit the BYOD policy in Carroll County Elementary Schools
Limit the use of the Bring Your Own Device policy in Carroll County Elementary Schools to only using personal devices during planned lesson times. Do not let grades 3rd through 5th use their devices during lunch, recess, or free time, but only for planned lessons.
Why is this important?
While we understand that the BYOD policy is helpful during our budget cuts and allows CCPS to spend less money on technology, there are a number of problems with the BYOD policy for Carroll County Elementary Schools:
A few of the problems, but not limited to this list are...
1. SOCIAL INTERACTION: Students are playing individual video games on their devices during indoor recess instead of socially interacting with other students. (1) A study out of UCLA proved that kids who were deprived of screens for five days got much better at reading people’s emotions than kids who continued their normal screen-filled lives.
2. BRING YOUR OWN DISTRACTION: When the device belongs to the student, it can be loaded with plenty of games, social networking apps, inappropriate content, and who knows what else. Students are playing these games and looking at these apps before the school bell, during lunch, during free time and at recess. The possibilities for this sort of distracting content and software are undoubtedly increased in an open BYOD scenario. If a student is limited to having the device out only when doing class work, they will likely not be accessing these apps, games, and content during the day and other students will be less likely exposed to this content as well.
3. INTERNET CONTENT FILTERING: This is a necessary fact of tech life in most schools – Internet content must be filtered. When kids are bringing their own tech to school, it makes it increasingly harder to manage, and this is only becoming more problematic thanks to the increasing proliferation of 3G and 4G wireless personal devices. An open and very unlimited BYOD program would only add to these complications, and make it that much harder for a technology department to ensure compliance with content filtering objectives and the protection of students from inappropriate content while in school.
4. The HAVE and HAVE NOT Syndrome: School life is challenging enough for some elementary school children (and their parents) without the additional pressure of having to deal with not having a device. The less fortunate kids should not have to face this every day. We do our best to not expose them when it comes to free and reduced lunches, but now we are pointing them out.
5. SCREEN TIME LIMITS: Many families are trying to limit screen times at home because there are many studies that prove too much screen time is unhealthy for your brain, your eyes, your mental health and your physical health. (2) According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day. We don't need to add to this time by playing on devices at school.
6. CHILDHOOD OBESITY: As pointed out above, the average child spends 7.5 hours in front of a screen. That is more than any other activity except for sleeping. (3) Too much time parked in front of the television or computer screen is driving the epidemic of childhood obesity in the U.S., according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Students need to be encouraged to put the devices down and move. Our very unlimited BYOD policies do not promote physical activity.
We need to be the voice for our children and limit the BYOD policy for their health, safety, and well being.
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(1) Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues
Yalda T. Uhlsa, , , Minas Michikyanb, Jordan Morrisc, Debra Garciad, b, Gary W. Smalle, Eleni Zgourouf, Patricia M. Greenfielda
(2) Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people’s media use. The report is based on a survey conducted between October 2008 and May 2009 among a nationally representative sample of 2,002 3rd-12th grade students ages 8-18, including a self-selected subsample of 702 respondents who completed seven-day media use diaries, which were used to calculate multitasking proportions.
(3) Strasburger VC, et al "Policy statement -- Children, adolescents, obesity, and the media" Pediatrics 2011; 128: 201–208.
A few of the problems, but not limited to this list are...
1. SOCIAL INTERACTION: Students are playing individual video games on their devices during indoor recess instead of socially interacting with other students. (1) A study out of UCLA proved that kids who were deprived of screens for five days got much better at reading people’s emotions than kids who continued their normal screen-filled lives.
2. BRING YOUR OWN DISTRACTION: When the device belongs to the student, it can be loaded with plenty of games, social networking apps, inappropriate content, and who knows what else. Students are playing these games and looking at these apps before the school bell, during lunch, during free time and at recess. The possibilities for this sort of distracting content and software are undoubtedly increased in an open BYOD scenario. If a student is limited to having the device out only when doing class work, they will likely not be accessing these apps, games, and content during the day and other students will be less likely exposed to this content as well.
3. INTERNET CONTENT FILTERING: This is a necessary fact of tech life in most schools – Internet content must be filtered. When kids are bringing their own tech to school, it makes it increasingly harder to manage, and this is only becoming more problematic thanks to the increasing proliferation of 3G and 4G wireless personal devices. An open and very unlimited BYOD program would only add to these complications, and make it that much harder for a technology department to ensure compliance with content filtering objectives and the protection of students from inappropriate content while in school.
4. The HAVE and HAVE NOT Syndrome: School life is challenging enough for some elementary school children (and their parents) without the additional pressure of having to deal with not having a device. The less fortunate kids should not have to face this every day. We do our best to not expose them when it comes to free and reduced lunches, but now we are pointing them out.
5. SCREEN TIME LIMITS: Many families are trying to limit screen times at home because there are many studies that prove too much screen time is unhealthy for your brain, your eyes, your mental health and your physical health. (2) According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids ages 8-18 now spend, on average, a whopping 7.5 hours in front of a screen for entertainment each day. We don't need to add to this time by playing on devices at school.
6. CHILDHOOD OBESITY: As pointed out above, the average child spends 7.5 hours in front of a screen. That is more than any other activity except for sleeping. (3) Too much time parked in front of the television or computer screen is driving the epidemic of childhood obesity in the U.S., according to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Students need to be encouraged to put the devices down and move. Our very unlimited BYOD policies do not promote physical activity.
We need to be the voice for our children and limit the BYOD policy for their health, safety, and well being.
-------------------------------------------
(1) Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues
Yalda T. Uhlsa, , , Minas Michikyanb, Jordan Morrisc, Debra Garciad, b, Gary W. Smalle, Eleni Zgourouf, Patricia M. Greenfielda
(2) Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds is the third in a series of large-scale, nationally representative surveys by the Foundation about young people’s media use. The report is based on a survey conducted between October 2008 and May 2009 among a nationally representative sample of 2,002 3rd-12th grade students ages 8-18, including a self-selected subsample of 702 respondents who completed seven-day media use diaries, which were used to calculate multitasking proportions.
(3) Strasburger VC, et al "Policy statement -- Children, adolescents, obesity, and the media" Pediatrics 2011; 128: 201–208.