Dear Parents,

Grade 9 Students to bring their own laptops/tablets to school starting January 2017

As new technologies continue to change the world in which we live, they provide many new and positive educational benefits for classroom instruction. Therefore, IKNS has decided to implement a pilot program for Bring Your Own Device (B.Y.O.D.) at our school. In this pilot, students are encouraged to bring their own technology devices to school to engage in learning in new ways. Please note that students who cannot bring in outside technology will be able to access and utilize the school’s equipment. No student will be left out of instructional activities. This pilot’s sole purpose is to explore allowing students to use their own personal devices in new instructional ways.

Educational Purpose of B.Y.O.D.

B.Y.O.D. will allow students to voluntarily bring their own personal device to be used for instructional purposes only, under the supervision and direction of the teacher. In this pilot, we will be including all Grade 9 students at IKNS.

Definition of “Device”

For purposes of BYOD, “device” means a privately owned wireless and/or portable electronic hand-held device that includes laptops and tablets. No mobile phones are permitted in class as part of this program. Please ensure to have the following Web Browsers installed:

• Firefox 
• Safari 
• Chrome 

Students may not use VPNs.

Grade 9 Students will be assigned a school-based Gmail account in January 2017. They will be using this for all work during this pilot. We will be using Google Classroom in all classes in the ninth grade, and hopefully will extend the service to the rest of the grade levels in the near future.

We appreciate your cooperation and look forward to working with you to make this pilot a reality.

Kind regards.

Secondary School Administration