All,
I know this has been discussed in bits and pieces elsewhere, but we are facing this as a reality and would like some feedback from the community, so here it goes.
We (the
Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University is looking at investing in some wireless mobile devices to be used by students from local districts while they spend six weeks in a lab type setting with us. The point of the mobile devices is that they have them in the lab as well as outside (on the bus, at school, at home, etc.). Parents sign a consent form for their kids to come to our labs (video/picture release, AUP (we run unfiltered internet) etc.)
What we envision that could potentially happen is this:
*School administrators will ban the devices at their schools ("it's wireless so it must be bad")
*Parents won't let their kids participate if they are going to have access to these devices (same reason).
*Wireless will be unavailable or inaccessible in schools (not as much of a problem, because it would actually give us a justification for letting the kids have them, because we can say that they won't be able to access trouble while in their home schools
).
....
Anyway, I think we've figured out what the major issues are going to be that we might run into. However, I'd love to hear from all of you what your experiences have been with implementing wireless mobile devices, e.g. the new EDA.
To end on a positive note, pushing forward with what we want to do will give us some really good opportunities to do research in the area of teaching kids how to use technology in responsible, ethical, and safe ways (and I don't mean block if it seems bad). It's in many curriculum standards but probably one of the least taught aspects of technology use for teaching and learning.
I'm looking forward to your responses...
FORUM
General Area 
