Abstract:

Digital objects such as smartphones, tablets, laptops are usually banished from the classrooms because they are deemed to hinder the students’ concentration and encourage secondary activities.

By transforming their personal use into an interactive means of learning with a system of BYOD (bring your own device), they not only get the attention of the students but also become a strength.

In this article, we shall demonstrate how digital technology and more exactly the BYOD can contribute to impulse a certain model of teaching: active pedagogy.

1. BYOD AT PARIS DESCARTES UNIVERSITY:
The acronym BYOD refers to “[…] technology models where students bring a personally owned device to [university] for the purpose of learning.” Alberta Education.

1.1 Our experiences in a few words:
Since 2011, teachers at Paris Descartes University in association with Information and communications technology (ICT) for Education, have set up interactive sessions using BYOD in various departments (Biomedical Sciences, Pharmacy, Medicine, Law, Mathematical engineering, Social and Human Sciences). They can interact directly in lecture halls with the students, by using the educational platform Moodle.
The students use on their digital devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets) to answer the teachers’ questions via an on-line questionnaire. The teachers can adapt their pedagogical approach according to the students’ returns.

1.2 The pedagogical uses of BYOD:
- increase motivation and attention;
- consolidate and revise pedagogical notions;
- final assesment and exams.

2. INTERACTIVITY AND INNOVATIVE PEDAGOGY: BYOD AS A GROUND OF EXPERIMENT
After 4 years of experiments, skepticism, teachers’ risk-taking, technical and educational reflection in the Faculty of Pharmacy (30 experiments) the teachers and the students appropriated the concept.

2.1 Research and construction:
In the various experiments which we shall present, the classrooms have become places for living and learning, doing research and being creative, for teachers interacting with their students. The teachers supported by ICT teams, take time to test, to live in their space, to innovate and to rethink their pedagogy.

2.2 Teaching and a personalized learning:
The digitals objects have become objects of learning. The moments when the students learn and the way they do so were modified. The teachers could guide the students, adjust their reasoning, give personalized feedbacks according to the students’ answers by explaining their educational approach. We noticed that the BYOD resulted in a common intellectual posture for teachers and students: they build knowledge together.

In conclusion, the BYOD is a way to help achieve active pedagogy at university. We took advantage of the smartphone, this daily object, vital in the lives of the students, to help them concentrate and feel intellectually involved: it is a bait which facilitates the interactions between students, groups of students and their teachers.

References:
[1] Alberta Education. (2012). Bring your own device: a guide for schools. Edmonton: Alberta Education.

Keywords:

Innovation, technology, BYOD, Higher Education.