I see that the Whitewater Schools now have a bring-your own device (BYOD) policy. This is the right decision, allowing students to use the many useful, advanced devices available to students across America. Tablets, laptops, handhelds: facility in their use — and simple enjoyment of them — is now part of a proper schooling.
The full details of the policy are available online Here’s the introduction:
Students who choose to bring in their own Internet-capable devices to Whitewater Unified School District will have access to the District wireless system. This document may answer some of the questions the community may have about this opportunity for students.
In continuing our efforts to provide more access for students, we will be allowing students to bring their own wireless mobile learning device beginning on January 24, 2012. This will allow for students to access our secure network with their own device within the school day through a common portal. This includes personal laptops, smart phones, portable storage media, and other handheld devices.
It was a lifetime ago, when I was the age of those now in our schools, that my father saw that I had the cutting-edge devices of that now-distant time. I had a proper calculator (HP), and for a class that required a slide rule, a precision one from what was then West Germany. He loved his son, so dearly as parents today love their children, and so offered every possible advantage.
It’s right to allow others to do as much for this new generation as devoted parents once did for us.
Well done.