Community-based learning (CBL) via facebook mobile “it is time to BYOD (bring your own device)

 The penetration of social networking platforms such as Facebook is becoming pervasive in education, along with mobile applications (apps) and mobile devices. Students are using these technologies and apps to organise their learning material. Social media via apps is the most popular activity among college students. In this paper we discuss how teachers could take advantage of Facebook social media platform to promote community-based-learning environment that is flexible, portable and challengeable. We describe how this could be achieved with no restriction to any particular mobile device brand or operating system and how student would simply bring their own device (BYOD).

Five ways to hack and cheat with bring-your-own-device electronic examinations

Bring-your-own-device electronic examinations (BYOD e-exams) are a relatively new type of assessment where students sit an in-person exam under invigilated conditions with their own laptop. Special software restricts student access to prohibited computer functions and files, and provides access to any resources or software the examiner approves. In this study, the decades-old computer security principle that ‘software security depends on hardware security’ is applied to a range of BYOD e-exam tools. Five potential hacks are examined, four of which are confirmed to work against at least one BYOD e-exam tool. The consequences of these hacks are significant, ranging from removal of the exam paper from the venue through to receiving live assistance from an outside expert. Potential mitigation strategies are proposed; however, these are unlikely to completely protect the integrity of BYOD e-exams. Educational institutions are urged to balance the additional affordances of BYOD e-exams for examiners against the potential affordances for cheaters.

Digital technology policies in Canada and Australia: an analysis of new rules for ‘new tech'

As mobile touch screen digital devices (MTSD) have moved into a more prominent position in classrooms and schools, the development of new policies to address these devices have also emerged at a rapid pace. While policy documents aimed at MTSD usage in schools are evident at range of levels, from school-based to education ministries and departments, there is relatively little research that examines such documents or their impact on teaching and learning. This paper reports on initial analyses of educational digital media and MSTD policies in education departments and schools in Victoria, Australia and Alberta, Canada. We examined these policy documents in relation to implications for resourcing, usage and teaching practice, as a part of a large-scale Canadian-funded comparative research project studying digital tools and practices. Schools must mediate and negotiate complex entangled environments that are all at once enabling and dis-abling of innovation, in relation to digital technologies. These complex environments are made visible through a closer reading of artifacts such as policy documents guiding technology use in schools and classrooms. Our paper will interrogate such documents, across both countries (Canada and Australia) and regions (Victoria and Alberta), in relation to several emergent themes: private vs. school funded ownership, attitudes towards ‘bring your own device' (BYOD) initiatives and "co-contributions", equity and access, and surveillance and control. As well, we will address how hopes and fears and understandings of digital literacy are represented, described and enacted through such policies. Our analyses will also contextualize our data in terms of the broader cultural, political and educational considerations that framing and undergirding policies in both countries, and, finally, we will address the different (and similar) assumptions that are communicated within the digital policy documents.