Go GREEN Initiative Hits Los Fresnos Schools

The Los Fresnos CISD Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Initiative is going strong, thanks in large part to teachers who are enhancing their instructional styles by incorporating technology.

Goodbye pen and paper. Hello mobile phones and mobile tablets. The Go Green initiative is here.

At the Los Fresnos United Ninth Grade Campus, World Geography teachers Ashley Cox, Guillermo Gomez and Cynthia Wareham are among the many whose classroom instruction is big on technology.

Between 50 and 90 percent of LFU students, depending on the class, are using their mobile devices as part of their regular curriculum in World Geography.

“Most students have mobile phones, but now many are more comfortable bringing iPads or tablets,” Wareham said. “Some kids don’t want to break them because they belong to their parents, so they use their phones instead.”

Wareham, Cox and Gomez are using Edmodo in their daily instruction. Students download the Edmodo app on their devices and are able to connect with their teachers for all daily work and assignments. Edmodo has been compared to Blackboard, which is used at the collegiate level.

Many teachers at LFU and Los Fresnos High School use Edmodo.

“It looks like the layout in Facebook, and that’s what the students love,” Gomez said. “It also puts me in a learning community with social studies teachers from all over the country.”

Teachers like Gomez create folders for each class on Edmodo, where they can upload class assignments and other information. “Students have the documents they are working on, so they can view them anytime and anywhere.”

Unlike Facebook, students using Edmodo cannot request friends outside of their class. They can only communicate with people in their classroom. They must have a password to access the class.

Wareham uses Edmodo daily through the Today in History app. “I’ll send out a post and everybody gets it immediately. Sometimes students may not finish work in class, they take a picture of it with their phone and finish it at home. I will have students responding asking me questions, even at night.”
Wareham is also a big fan of Google Drive, where documents and images can be stored and accessed from any computer or mobile device.

“Google Drive is something I use a lot,” Wareham said. “I hear the excuses that I left my homework at home, my USB broke, or the dog ate my homework. With Google Drive, there are no excuses.”

Cox uses a different approach with her classes, using Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

“I found a great way to interact with the students was to use what they had already downloaded on their phones,” Cox said. “Most already had Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.”

Instead of posting on Edmodo, Cox posts class assignments on Twitter. From there, she can post links to videos, chats, and news stories. Students can view their assignments from anywhere on their mobile devices.

“With just a picture or caption, you can catalog everything they worked on,” Cox said. “Students can see their work and it’s always cataloged. Two or three years from now, when they have to do a portfolio for a class, they can go back to what they did in the freshman year.”

For example, students can capture images in class from their mobile devices because they did not have an atlas at home. “It’s a great way for them to see their work on the Internet, and not just on a wall posted in a classroom.”

Many administrators and teachers also use the QR Code reader app for different purposes. Wareham posted a QR code during a class assignment that linked to historical events. Students took pictures of the QR code with their mobile devices, and they were able to find answers to quiz questions there.
Cox also uses Class Dojo for behavior management. The app connects students, parents and teachers so that feedback can be provided in any direction. It allows the teacher to provide feedback to the parents, both positive and negative. “We can send messages to parents instantly about their children’s behavior in class, whether positive or negative.”

Getting students accustomed to using mobile devices instead of paper will also help the environment in the future.

“We didn’t think that the students would embrace this,” Wareham said. “We thought this would be too immature for them. But most of them have embraced it. They think ‘this is cool, this is great.’ They can now see because I am walking around the class with an iPad. They are more active in class.”

Gomez knows that BYOD is here to stay. “The BYOD initiative has been a blessing,” Students, especially at the high school level, have mobile phones and iPads. It’s a reality. With the new technology, we have to adjust our teaching styles. The positives outweigh the negatives. Students have phones in their pockets and now we’re using them for instruction.”