We are committed to aiding students and staff in creating a 21st century learning environment. Therefore, we are piloting a new initiative which will aid in this goal. In the future, we will be working towards allowing all students and staff to access our wireless network with their personal devices (laptops, netbooks, tablets, smart phones, etc) during the school day. But, in order to ensure that we are successful in implementing a Bring Your Own Device initiative, we first plan to pilot this.

With classroom teacher approval, students will be able use their own devices to access the internet and collaborate with other students for educational purposes that enhance the classroom experience. Many schools across the nation are implementing Bring Your Own Device programs for their students and staff and are meeting with great success. By allowing students to use their own technology at school, we are hoping to increase the access all students have to technology they need to succeed.

We believe, at this time, most of our Hopedale students have access to their own devices and we are attempting to incorporate strategies to ensure every student has access to online resources. Particular applications accessed by a web browser, like Google Docs, eliminates the need to have specific software loaded onto every student computer, which now allows students to access school applications from their own device. In addition, cloud based computing allows students to access their information from any computer with a web browser. We believe that 21st Century Learning requires students to be information producers rather than information consumers, self-directed learners, and collaborative team players. We believe access to technology and our initiative to allow students to bring their own devices will aid our students in achieving this. We also plan to work with students who may not have access to their own device to ensure they have access to a school issued device throughout the day.