The moment students have been waiting for has finally arrived. Bring Your Own Device has recently been put into effect at De Soto High School. With this new power, naturally, comes great responsibility.

While some may use phones, laptops, or any other electronic device to text in class, it is definitely furthering DHS’ educational abilities.

Some teachers feel very differently about this. Some will allow lectures to be recorded, notes to be taken on phones and answers looked up for them, while others do not even want to see an electronic device. Or else.

BYOD is being used responsibly in most cases. Of course, they have rule breakers who will always take advantage of an opportunity to abuse their privileges, but most students use their phones or laptops for educational purposes during school.

Giving students more leeway on when they can and cannot use electronic devices was a huge step in the right direction for DHS.

In class, if a teacher asks a student what countries border Switzerland? instead of getting blank stares and awkward silences, he or she can now have students looking up the map, and are able to get an answer in ten seconds or less.

Another reason DHS is moving forward, is because students can bring their own laptops. Having to power up the horrifically slow and mostly outdated laptops was a pain and students always had much less time to write the paper they needed, or to do the homework that they needed a computer for.

Now, Microsoft Word is available at the click of a button and no one is at the mercy of 15 minutes of that annoying loading screen.

All around, BYOD has improved not only the technology used at DHS, but students’ want to learn and the willingness to pay attention in class. Who knew DHS held the power to advance learning at the click of a mouse.