Costs+(financial+and+other)

COSTS: PURCHASING; MAINTENANCE; TRAINING OPPORTUNITY LOST COSTS AS WELL

[] The article is about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) programs in schools and the security issues that accompany this. A school district in TX is mentioned as they have abandoned a laptop program in favor of letting students bring what they have. This is saving money as the devices belong to students and the schools provide the filtered WiFi. They are finding, however, that while the connection aspects are easy hurdles, the more difficult aspect has been accommodating different platforms, screen sizes, etc. in one classroom

This article gives us a resource for some school administrators' **reluctance** to have cell phones in schools because of their ability to distract attention from classwork. This can relate to opportunity costs, not financial costs: Dodds, Richard, and Christine Y. Mason. "Cell Phones and PDA's Hit K-6." Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review 70, no. 8 (April 1, 2005): 52-53. ERIC, EBSCOhost (accessed February 22, 2011).

[] This interview discusses many aspects of mobile devices in schools. I think it might best fit here because the professor discusses how smartphones are a cheaper alternative to iPads and laptops. He refutes claims that the cost is an issue...calling it a "phony issue" and seeing it more as an excuse than a true "cost." He also addresses concerns about students being distracted or cheating because of the devices. I enjoyed this interview very much.

To back up his discussion of laptops being impractical in the school setting, we should use some of Mark Warschauer's research, which shows that Laptop programs in schools have largely failed.

Grimes, Douglas and Mark Warschauer. 2008. Learning with laptops: A multi-method case study. Journal for Educational Computing Research 38, no. 3: 305-332.

Warschauer, Mark. 2007. Information literacy in the laptop classroom. Teacher College Record 109, no. 11 (November): 2511-1540.

[] This article also talks about the reluctance of schools to use cell phones. A lot of attention is paid to a 2009 study by CommonSense Media that polled students about cheating with cell phones during school. This has some troubling data about the downside of the technology. Could this be used in a section on opportunity cost?

Virginia is among the first states to address, through its Department of Education, the need for a policy on social media and schools. Basically, the article points out that as DOE officials and politicians struggle with the idea and want to create parameters and guidelines, teachers throughout the state are already making use of social media, SMS, etc. in coursework and feel that limitations on this will hamper their ability to instruct students in an engaging way: Sieff, Kevin. 2011. "Reading and writing and tweets and clicks: Some see social media as teaching tool. Va. sees a problem." //The Washington Post// (March 25): A1, 7.