IMPLEMENTING BYOD IN THE CLASSROOM TO

INCREASE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Janell Maszatics
Marygrove College
EDT 655
Professor Chenfeng Zhang Ph.D.
04/7/2016

Acknowledgements
To the wonderful staff at Brumfield Elementary who were always willing to try something new
when I had a new project or paper due. To Pam Graves the Agnes Meyer teacher of the year
recipient who allowed me into her classroom to try something out of the box.

Abstract With so many devices being used in schools today is the level of instruction more
effective using technology? Or are we just using technology to assess student learning. Teachers
are being forced to use technology and is it always effective? Do students using devices
automatically equate to 21st century skills? In addition teachers need training so that technology
integration is effective and appropriate. My research is going to specially focus on formal
assessments using technology. More specifically using BYOD (Bring your own device) for
formal assessments and whether its more effective than traditional methods.

Table of Contents
Abstract.3
Introduction...5
Pressures of teaching in the 21st century...5
Teaching Standards...............6
Formative assessments..7
Effectiveness of incorporating technology....8
Research Design8
Implementing BYOD....9
Qualitative Research....10
Data Gathering.11
Analysis17
Recommendations19
References20
Appendix A..21
Appendix B......22
Appendix C......30
Appendix D......31
Appendix E......32
Appendix F..34
Appendix G.42

Introduction
Are teachers more effective if they are integrating technology into their lessons? Do
students need devices to be stimulated and engaged in the classroom in the 21st century? What
happened to the traditional ways of teaching students before laptops, cell phones and tablets? Are
traditional ways of teaching students not as effective as lesson enriched with technology? Current
teacher evaluations rate teachers on their effective use and incorporation of technology in their
lessons but does that make them better teachers? Our district implemented a BYOD policy 2
years ago. Students are allowed to bring their own devices and connect to the schools guest
network. It has taken me 2 years to get an elementary teacher to agree to allow me to come into
her classroom and help her incorporate devices into her formative assessment. Why focus on
formative assessment one might ask? Well, our school is an accredited school with warning,
since is it our second year, with warning, the state came and inspected our school. One of the
things the state said we need to focus on is formative assessments in the classroom. My
experiment was to create formative assessments using Kahoot, Nearpod, Plicker cards and
Google forms to assess student learning. I choose formative assessments because it was our
school focus but I also wanted to show teachers how to incorporate more technology into their
lesson and thus become more effective teachers.
The pressure is immense for teachers to incorporate more technology. Some teachers
have been teaching 30+ years and struggle with technology. Does it make them any less a better
teacher if they are not incorporating technology into their lessons? Teaching in the 21st century
means collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and communication. So teachers must teach
students to be critical thinkers who can communicate as well as collaborate while being creative

with digital tools. Not necessarily all at the same time but you see the challenges teachers today
face.
A teacher that has been in the classroom for 25 years probably started typing on a word
processor and there was no option to save a file. Now teachers are not only being asked to save
files but inspire student learning and creativity with the use of technology (ISTE, p.1).
Teachers are expected to design appropriate learning experiences that incorporate digital tools.
They need to be able to engage students, manage information and support decisions that
improve student learning and achievement (VDOE). Managing the information seems to be the
easiest of the tasks but even that can be daunting with so many new programs, websites, learning
management systems and student database systems. Not only are there the national technology
standards ISTE (international society for technology education) but then each state has their own
students and teacher technology standards.
On top of that teachers are evaluated on whether they are integrating technology into their
lessons as part of their annual evaluation. Their score on technology integration into a lesson can
determine if they achieve tenure or continue on a yearly contract. What if the teacher utilizes
technology almost every day but just happened to be observed on a day the class was reenacting
a play and there was no evidence of technology? Does the teacher still get credit for integrating
technology?
We live in a world where technology is all around us. Our students will be evaluated on
their technology skills when they get into the work force. Its our job to adequately prepare them
to collaborate and communicate using media and digital tools. Most students use personal
devices for a multitude of tasks. Even at the elementary level we see kindergarteners bringing in
iPads and Nooks. So its the teachers job to not only incorporate technology into their lessons but

also have students transfer what they have learned about technology to become critical thinkers
and problem solvers.
To achieve teacher as well as student technology standards a variety of formative
programs can be implemented using BYOD in the classroom. Formative assessment is an
excellent way to quickly evaluate whether instruction is effective and whether the instructor
needs to take a different approach or continue with the current teaching style. Often time
classroom teachers focus so much on teaching the standards but they pay little attention to
whether the students are understanding the material at that given moment. Case in point often
times teachers have centers throughout the room for students to complete while they work with a
small group. They assume the students are understanding the materials because they completed
the task but how does the teacher gage whether they comprehend for the lesson. This why
formative assessment is so crucial. The teacher needs to evaluate the student comprehension
while the learning task is occurring or shortly thereafter. Then the teacher can modify the
teaching style to better fits the needs of the classroom to improve student achievement. This
allows the students to practice and apply what they have learned while the teacher checks for
understanding. Often times teachers get in the habit of giving a pre-test and the beginning of a
unit, then introducing a concept or topic and ending the unit with a summative assessment at the
end of the unit or lesson.
Formative assessment can be utilized in a variety of ways. Exit tickets are the most
common form of formative assessment because they are relatively quick and make the students
apply the information to say what they learned in that particular lesson that day. Another great
tool is having students write a summary of what they learned where they are only allowed to use
20 words to summarize what they learned. Other traditional methods of formative assessment are

Alphablocks, Improving my learning sheets, and weekly self-evaluations. All of these steps are
time consuming because the teacher then needs time to sit down and evaluate the information.
Research Design
Which leads to the next step of formative assessment: using technology to implement
successful formative assessment. A wide assortment of technology tools are available for
teachers to integrate technology into formative assessment. These programs have been proven to
make formative assessment more effective. Classroom-based assessments that are used in
formative ways have been shown to significantly benefit student learning through providing
feedback on the status of students conceptual knowledge and problem-solving practices (Black
& William, 1998). As educators we know technology plays a major role in our students lives
and in order to achieve the 21st century skills our students needs must use technology in every
aspect of their education. Formative assessment is a relatively quick way to incorporate
technology and gauge learning comprehension to drive future instruction. Technology can be
used to promote critical thinking about requiring student to synthesis what they learned in a
particular task.
So how does a teacher choose a particular technology tools for formative assessment?
One way would be to use Evidence-centered assessment design. Which is linking the learning
to be assessed (a student model), to a task model that specifies features of the tasks and questions
that would elicit the evidence of learning, then to an evidence model that specifies the types of
student responses and scores that would indicate levels of proficiency (Messick, 1994). I prefer
Nearpod as my technology tool of choice. You can infuse videos, create slides, lessons as well
as quizzes. You can have students draw their authentic answers; which display on your screen as
soon as the students submits. You can also create multiple choice questions, short answer or even

drag and drop. Most importantly student responses are immediate so instructions can be adapted
to meet the needs of students.
In the case of formative assessment technology helps the teacher score students
assessment and interpret the data quickly. One of the most important aspects of formative
assessment is utilizing real time data to adjust instruction while instruction is occurring. As
opposed to traditional methods of assessment where a teacher has to wait until after they give an
assessment to see what students missed or didnt comprehend. At that point often times its too
late and there is not enough time to go back and reteach concepts.
Research shows that when applied correctly, technology in the classroom can
foster gains in academic performance and student enthusiasm (WSSDA, 2013) So does
using a projector or Smartboard in the classroom classify as using technology in the
classroom. Actually, its the students that need to be the ones using the technology. Yes,
having a projector and Smartboard in the classroom is extremely helpful but students need
to be the ones creating and communicating with the technology. Once that happens that is
when you will start to see the gains in academic performance and enthusiasm. I havent
meet a single student yet that doesnt get excited when technology is involved, especially
if they are allowed to use their own device.
Students live in a world that heavily relies on technology. No longer can the teacher be
the only one using technology. This is where formative assessment comes into play. Using
programs like Nearpod, Socrative, Kahoot and Google Forms students use technology to
respond to teachers while being engaged. Bring your own device allows teachers that do not
have enough devices in their classroom to achieve success.

Qualitative Research
So where does a veteran teacher start if they want to engage students using personal
devices to increase achievement? The answer is formal assessment. My hypothesis is that if I
could get just one teacher to use BYOD in the classroom it would increase student engagement
and therefore increase student achievement and then other teachers in the building would start to
use BYOD in their classrooms. I started by asking 5th grade teachers who would be willing to
allow me to come into their classes to incorporate BYOD into their classroom specially focusing
on formative assessments. I had one teacher volunteer who teaches GT and unfortunately I
wasnt sure how I would measure increased achievement with a group that was already so high. I
choose a 5th grade teacher that has a low to medium group of students for my research. Even
though every student in the building has a BYOD form on file we decided to send out a parent
permission slip explaining how we would be using the devices for instruction and asking parents
if their child would be allowed to bring their devices. From there I meet with my teacher and
asked her which subject she would like to incorporate BYOD into her instruction. We chose her
language arts block because she was already teaching a specialized and scripted math program
that would not allow for deviation from the program. From there I needed a way to measure
student achievement. Its difficult to measure student achievement since the focus of formative
assessment is relatively new. My experiment was to create formative assessments using Kahoot,
Nearpod, Study Island, Socrative and Google forms to assess student learning. I choose
formative assessments because it was our school focus but also I wanted to show teachers how to
incorporate more technology into their lesson and thus become more effective teachers. The
problem was how do I assess whether they are more effective teachers? Its very subjective? So I

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decided to survey the students and see if they felt the integration of technology increased
achievement.
In order to incorporate technology into formative assessment using personal devices
serious consideration needs to be take when it comes to the schools or districts infrastructure.
Often school districts implement BYOD and dont realize the amount of bandwidth needed to
have students on the school network. For example, our school district ran into a problem because
once a person connects to the districts guest network they are on the network for 24 hours. That
means a parent coming into the school to pick up a student or having lunch with their child then
connects to the guest network because their phone has connected to the network at one time or
another and that takes up one access point for the whole day. Problems arise because there are
only so many access points and then students cannot connect. We had a back to school night
where parents connected to the guest network and the next day no one could get on the guest
network because all the parents were still connected (even though they were not in the building).
Some teachers have excellent signal strength well other have limited access. It just depends on
how close a teacher is to the access point and how many people are connected at one time. Its
like a highway and the more people that get on the highway the more congested it gets and the
slower everyone starts to move. The more people you have connected to the guest network the
slower the network is. Some schools ask teachers not connect to the network during the day to
allow for more student access. Other schools make sure they get to school early and get the
devices on early in the morning so they can have access before the students get in.
Data Gathering
So the process of implementing bring your own device into the classroom to increase
student achievement began in Ms. Gravess 5th grade class. My role as an Information technology

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resource teacher allows me to co-teach with teachers throughout the building to help teachers
integrate more technology into their lessons. Day one was extremely interesting. Some of the
students forgot their devices and we had them use student laptops from a cart. These seemed to
be the biggest problem because often times they are not shutdown properly or fall off the
network due to inactivity. I had thought that personal devices would be a huge problem since
they are all different models and operating systems. It turned out students that were using
personal devices were able to access the formative assessment much faster then students that
were using school computers. It seems that since students were familiar with their own devices
they wasted less time trying to troubleshoot and get on the network. Even though students had
different operating systems they were familiar enough with their own devices they required less
help to get to the required shorten Google URL and Kahoot. Where I saw the problem was
students who did not have devices or had to borrow school devices. Those students were much
more distracted and needed more help troubleshooting because they were not familiar with the
devices.
I started off with two simple Google Forms to familiarize the students with how to
connect to the guest network, respond to questions and navigate their devices. This was merely
just a warmup activity to get students comfortable while at the same time reviewing antonyms
and synonyms. The Google Forms were quick and easy but did not give immediate feedback on
whether they were mastering the content. I needed to add Flubaroo as a Google add-ons and then
once students had submitted their results I could go in and create answer keys to score their
results. What was nice about Google Forms was students did not have to wait for their classmates
to complete a questions to proceed to the next questions. I really liked the pie charts that Google
created from my students results. I was able to quickly and concisely evaluate their results and

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redesign my instruction. From the results I could tell that Ms. Gravess students had mastered
antonyms and synonyms.
My co-teacher and I decided to implement BYOD every Tuesday as part of her reading
lessons since she was already utilizing technology during math with a computerized math
program. We reminded students to bring their devices every Monday afternoon. For our second
lesson we decided to utilize Kahoot to review 4th grade science for an upcoming SOL. What is
great about this program is you can search SOL concepts like 4.2 and find already built lessons.
From there you can copy those lessons into your library and edit them as you see fit. Students
loved this formative assessment. What I did not like was it was a little too much like a game and
you could only select multiple choice questions or true and false. It made it very difficult to have
students apply what they had learned. I also did not like that you had to set a time on the
questions with 120 seconds being the most amount of time you could allow. For students that
have IEP accommodations requiring extended time on assessments this program was not in
compliance. In addition, I also did not like it had a score board which displayed after each
question. You could turn the points off for each question but the program then still displayed
names with the number zero next to them and it was always the same students because not
everyones name in the class fit on the screen. So students in the class thought those students
were beating them. Students were able to see what place they are in after each questions which I
didnt care for. I liked that it graphed students results and gave the correct answer after each
question. This gave the students immediate feedback and corrected any mistakes before they
became a habit. The final results were very helpful to pin points which concepts needed more indepth explanation since all the terms were a review from 4th grade. What was particularly helpful
was at the end of the quiz students were able to self-evaluate their learning by rating with thumbs

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up or thumbs down whether they felt they had learned, would recommend the lesson and how
they were feeling. All and all this was a great program for a quick review or a game Friday but
the students spent a great deal of instructional time waiting on their peers to answer questions. I
found out after the lesson that you can download students results to a spreadsheet but only while
you are still in the Kahoot. Engagement was high but I didnt see increased student achievement.
Our third lesson was using Nearpod for a lesson I created reviewing 5th grade math
vocabulary. This program makes the lessons interactive while stimulating students. Assessment is
real-time and extremely engaging. I liked that I could login with my current Google account and
did not have to create a new account for this program. You can host a live session or assign it as
homework. You can add content such as slides, videos, live Twitter streams, PDF or even add a
field trip using Nearpod VR. In addition, you can add activities in the form of open ended
questions, polls, quizzes, draw it answers, fill in the blank or create memory test. I especially
liked the draw it answers. I was able to assess my students at a level higher than just basic
knowledge and comprehension. For example, my students had to draw lines to match
expressions to another expression with the same value. Which simulates technology enhanced
items that students will see on their SOL tests. Once students submitted their response I could
immediately see their answer and spark conversations as to why they answered the way they did.
With this program its important not to display your screen the whole time you are in live session
though. It does display students responses and percentage of students that answered questions
correctly. One thing I did not like about this program is unless you are giving a quiz you need to
advance to the next question. The work around this is giving a quiz so students can they can
advance to the next question without waiting but then you can only include multiple choice
questions. I loved that you could add a lesson or slide then create a proceeding questions. Student

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engagement was very high with this program. We did have to account for students wanting to
draw perfect lines and use the erasers a little too much. After they got used to the tools it was
smooth sailing. The reports on Nearpod are phenomenal. You can go back and review student
participation, ratio of correct answers and a summary of their quiz score, draw it score and their
overall participation.
For our 4th lesson we decided to use Nearpod. My co-teacher and I both felt it was the
best formative assessment tool. Student engagement was so high and we were able to assess
learning in real-time. For this lesson on punctuation I purchased a lesson that someone had
created on Nearpod. Although it was a 4th grade lesson it aligned perfectly to 5th grade Virginia
standards. This lessons was extremely interactive and required the students to watch a lesson on
punctuation and then correct a document using the draw tools. I could then see who was making
corrections as soon as they submitted them. Instead of having to wait until the end of the day and
go back and grade their work. This was the lesson was when things really started to come
together. By this point students had learned how to use the tools and what to expect next. Few
students had questions about how to use devices and the attention was on the instruction and not
on the tools.
On the fourth lesson all students remembered to bring their own devices, connected to the
internet quickly and waited patiently for instruction. Formative assessment using BYOD had
become seamless. I had decided to try one more program called Study Island because my school
was already paying for licenses and there was a new group lesson tools. I took the opportunity to
review place value, prime and composite numbers in addition to real world story problems. Like
the other formative assessment programs students logged into their reading teachers class in
Study Island and there was an assignment waiting for them. Once I started the group it gave them

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a question and polled their answers. I wanted to see how this program compared to the others and
I was still looking to see which program helped me evaluate student comprehension while the
learning task was occurring or shortly thereafter. Thus allowing the students to practice and apply
what they have learned while I am for understanding.
After reviewing my data from the previous lesson I realized my students were still
struggling with place value. I decided to create a group session in Study Island to review place
value with my students in the next BYOD lesson. Students logged into my Study Island class and
then selected the group session I had created. Study Island was great because I could project the
questions and it told me once everyone had submitted their answer but not what they had
answered. I could then show everyone the correct answer before moving on the next question.
This proved to be an excellent tool for whole group review. At the end of the lesson I was able
pull up a report with my student results. Unfortunately, it didnt give me individual or class
percentages. I also had to go back and look at each questions again because it only told me they
answered question 4 wrong and not how the question was asked. We had finished with this
lesson rather quickly since the students were becoming so tech savvy so I decided to include a
warm-up math lesson from Nearpod on multiplying decimals. When it comes to formative
assessment Nearpod seems to lead the market in engaging formative assessments with real-time
data. I was able to look at my screen and help a student that thought she has solved the problem
correctly. Which launched a discussion on different ways to decipher how many times you move
the decimal when multiplying.
For our final BYOD lesson my co-teacher asked me to cover polygons. More specifically
quadrilaterals, parallelograms, rhombuses and rectangles. Focusing on drag and drop as well as
matching questions. I decided to use Study Island Live Group for this final lesson because the

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majority of questions had multiple answers as well as some drag and drop questions. I had found
that BYOD was more effective if the students were familiar with the platform as opposed to
trying a new program that possibly could have more detailed data. One of the things I liked most
about Study Islands Live Group feature was students were able to log back in and pick up where
they left off if they were kicked off the network. Most formative assessment programs would
have had them sign in again and then their data would have been inaccurate.
Being a technology resource teacher doesnt mean I believe every lesson should have
technology integrated into it. I believe that technology is just a tool and should be used when
appropriate. So I needed to a way to measure student achievement as a result of BYOD. After the
first lesson I would have probably told you too much instructional time was lost due to
troubleshooting the technology but then thats not student achievement. I needed a tool to
measure achievement. I knew that engagement was through the roof because I had parents
stopping me in the hallways to tell me how excited their child was to go to my class. So often
teachers equate engagement to achievement and thats not always the case. I decided that my
research was going to be more qualitative and I was going to survey the students at the end of my
research as ask them whether they felt that bringing their devices helped them apply the concepts
they had learned or whether it was just fun to bring devices to school. I meet with my co-teacher
and we devised a Google Forms to have the students evaluate BYOD. We even starting calling it
technology Tuesday.
Analysis
BYOD in the classroom was a huge success. My co-teacher loved it and was impressed
with how many programs were available for formative assessment. My students feedback was
extremely rewarding and will definitely guide future instruction. Their level of skill at the

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beginning of BYOD was around a 2 on a 1 to 5 scale. After the lessons most students rated their
knowledge at a 4 or higher. 62% of students said bringing their own devices contributed to their
learning. They even wrote comments at the end saying they would like more technology
integration and could I come during their math class. 100% of students thought the instruction
was clear and 94% said BYOD instruction stimulated their interests. Every student surveyed said
BYOD allowed them to participate fully. When asked what aspects of using personal devices in
the classroom where beneficial one student responded bringing devices gave kids like myself a
fun environment for learning purposes.
Recommendations
With so many programs available to engage students its important to evaluate new tools
with a test audience before implementation. I attended a formative assessment training at a VSTE
conference that incorporated Plicker Cards, Socrative, Nearpod, Kahoot and Google Forms so I
could evaluate the tools. Every time I created a new lesson I had my 6th grade son test out the
lesson to troubleshoot any problems. This allowed me to change settings ahead of time without
wasting valuable instructional time and foresee future problems.
Consistency is key to a successful implementation of BYOD. If students were supposed
to bring their devices on a snow day; it really confused them. If the students had to guess
whether they had to bring a device, they were more likely to forgot their devices. The more
consistent I was with implementing the more students remembered to bring their devices. The
same thing goes for the selection of formative assessment tools. I found that when I applied
programs that students were familiar with the results were more accurate. Students did make
simple mistakes like accidently submitting or logging out unintentionally.

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Another thing to consider is have additional devices on hand for those students that forget
their devices. Even though I sent out a form asking which students did not have devices so I
could make sure those students were equipped; I still had students who owned devices forgot
them, so I borrowed devices from another program in the building. At first I was afraid students
would forget their devices on purpose to use the school devices but that did not seem to be the
case.
With immense pressure to incorporate more technology into classrooms teachers need
ways to integrate technology efficiently. Technology standards require teachers to inspire student
learning through the use of technology so students can become 21st century learners in the global
world. How do teachers achieve this if they dont have devices in their rooms? Bring your own
device can be highly beneficial paired with formative assessment. There are many technology
programs available such as Kahoot, Study Island, and Nearpod for teachers to integrate
technology using formative assessment with personal devices. These programs have been proven
to make formative assessment more effective. The key is to sticking to one or two programs for
consistency so you dont lose valuable instructional time. Research has proven that when applied
correctly technology in the classroom can foster gains in student achievement. Once the
obstacles of network bandwidth and access points has been ironed out BYOD paired with
formative assessment can be extremely effective even in an elementary classroom.

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Resources:
Standards for Teachers. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2016, from
http://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards/standards-for-teachers
Technology Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2016, from
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/support/technology/standards/
An Educator's Guide to the Four Cs. (n.d.). Retrieved February 09, 2016, from
http://www.nea.org/tools/52217.htm
Formative assessment has been demonstrated to result in increased student achievement across
a variety of educational contexts.Shirley, M. L., & Irving, K. E. (February 01, 2015). Connected
Classroom Technology Facilitates Multiple Components of Formative Assessment
Practice. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 24, 1, 56-68.
Quellmalz, E. (2013). Technology to support next-generation classroom formative assessment for
learning. San Francisco: WestEd.
AUGUST 2014 - WSSDA. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2016, from
http://www.wssda.org/Portals/0/News/Research Blast/August 2014 Research Blast Final
Templated.pdf
Messick, S. (1994). The interplay of evidence and consequences in the validation of performance
assessments. Educational Researcher, 32, 1323.
Fauquier County Public Scool division works to improve WiFi. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13,
2016, from
http://www.fauquier.com/news/article/fauquier_county_public_scool_division_works_to_improv
e_wifi

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Appendix A

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Appendix B
Google Forms revealed that my students had mastered antonyms and synonyms. The pie
charts were very easy to decipher whether my students learned the material.

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Appendix C
Nearpod Math Vocabulary-This report revealed many students were not able to submit
their drawings due to problems with school Panasonic 3e devices. Students were not able to draw
on their screens and therefore could not submit their results. A couple of students logged out
(closed out accidently) and then had to log back so they are listed a second time. The quiz scores
prompted me to readjust my instruction. I needed to go back and review key math vocabulary.

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Appendix D
Study Island Place Value Review

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Appendix E
BYOD evaluation tool to measure achievement.

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Appendix F
Results of student evaluation of BYOD

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Appendix G
Student Achievement Results of BYOD contribution to learning/knowledge

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