By Karah Wilson

karah@southerntorch.com

DEKALB CO., Ala.—The DeKalb County Board of Education passed a policy Apr. 16 that allowed students of DeKalb County schools to bring their electronic devices in the classroom for learning purposes. This program is called Connecting Champions Learning Initiative, CCLI for short. Assistant Superintendent Brian Thomas met with students and parents of the county schools and said that “they gave really good feedback” towards the program.

Thomas said that it “is still early on in the program, but teachers and students are excited.” The program is a class by class program, meaning that the teachers can choose to participate in the program.

“We want our kids to have the same opportunity that other kids have,” Thomas said. “We want to be the best.” Fort Payne has a similar program in their school, however it is a bit different. Fort Payne uses a one-to-one initiative which means that the school provides the same device to all of the students rather than the students bringing their own. “It is hard to have a one-to-one initiative in the county schools without funding.”

One concern parents have is the monitoring and protection of their children’s devices during school hours. “We have a filtered network in place at all of the schools that blocks unwanted websites and advertising,” Thomas said. “Another thing we are doing is partnering with businesses and community organizations to provide devices to students who don’t have any of their own. Our goal is to have four to five loaner devices per classroom.” Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro has been one of the main sources of loaner devices. The School Board is also accepting individual donations.

“This program isn’t meant to replace anything, but it does open up another avenue of learning for students,” Thomas said. There have been approximately 1,500 students access this filtered network since the program began. This week teachers underwent CCLI training to learn how to better use the devices to teach students.