Category Archives: 1:1

Posted on

We’ve Finally Joined The School Blogosphere!!!

I got a Blogmeister account set up and had my students upload their first posts today (Thanks again Dave!). We have several finished pieces already, so hopefully by the end of the week we will have several posts going. I’m hoping to get them to finish writing posts about our “cutting edge” project to include a student that is assigned to our class, but has leukemia and can’t come to school, via a Skype audio and video feed. They are SO excited about being part of this and making a difference in someone’s life.

I had hoped we would have that up and going by now but we are still waiting for our donor to deliver a computer (and beggars can’t be “demanders”), so that won’t happen until after Christmas. That will give me time to load Skype and other software and maybe install the DSL in her apartment and teach her how to use it so when we return from the Holidays we are up and running.

So three-and-a-half weeks into our 1:1 laptop project we have learned how to log-on, open Appleworks, save, log-onto Flickr, add a photo to our written document, print, log-onto our blog, paste our writing into a blog document and post to our blog. We’ve also used several interactive web sites to practice math, learn about analogies and practice making them and do a bit of research about our state. And that’s just what we have done using tech!.

Learning is messy!

Posted on

Our 1:1 Laptop Program Is Going Slow But Steady

Two weeks ago we passed out our newly “batteried” (I know … no such word) Key Lime iBooks (about 7 years old). Since then my fourth graders have learned how to get them out of the carts, started-up, onto the web, start-up Appleworks, save, access Flickr, drag a photo from Flickr onto an Appleworks document, some font and text size adjustment, center text or image, put back in the carts and a few other skills. We also have spent some of our time troubleshooting issues like computers that didn’t have the right version of Appleworks or had no browser installed and the like – which I knew we would deal with. I’ve also learned it is close to ludicrous to all go to the same web site at the same time (we are using original Airport hubs – 26 computers all going online at the same time is a traffic jam waiting to happen), but I am going to play with that some (not that we should have to do that very often).

I’ve felt like things are going too slow – but in retrospect we are doing fine – especially considering that the vast majority of my students have never done this before – never used a trackpad (not one of my 26 students), 2 students had ever had 2 windows open at the same time or knew that was possible. Depending on what happens with getting my “27th student” a computer for her apartment so she can Skype into the classroom, we might get a bit sidetracked while we learn a bit about leukemia and Skype and how we are going to make that work. We also need to start blogging. Think we’ll get that done by Christmas?

Learning is messy!