Hello, Chromebooks!

The day has finally arrived. Chromebooks have been delivered and issued at my school!! We were first informed of this project in January, and to be honest, I thought this wouldn't happen. In late March, we had another inservice day on Chromebooks. I was pumped from that point onward. I was somewhat envious of schools that had technology, and ours had extremely limited access. It also made me hurt for my students. Let's make this happier, shall we?

Students were issued their Chromebooks yesterday afternoon, and I felt honored to be a teacher giving students in my advisory group their Chromebooks. Today, though, was the first full day of using Chromebooks in class. I prepared a presentation that allowed students to sign up for Google Classroom, Edulastic, Delta Math, and Classkick. I also had students download the Desmos app for Chromebooks.

I also wanted to give students a few minutes to get familiar with their Chromebooks. So, I gave them the last few minutes of class to play around with them. I also went over my procedures for Chromebooks.

However, the real fun begins tomorrow. We are doing a couple of Desmos Activity Builder lessons on Quadratic Transformations in Algebra 2, and we are doing a Desmos activity on translations and reflections tomorrow and Thursday in Geometry. I also have been switching some of my quiz formats to Google Forms. I am still thinking through managing behavior on that, though.

The only behavior issues I saw were lots of chatting when I was trying to explain stuff. I told students that I wouldn't talk above them while explain Chromebook information. I also stated that I would only answer one question at a time. That helped a bit! I also noticed students were using the chat feature on their computers. We will also have to fix this as well.

I think this is a major paradigm shift for our students and the state of education in our district, and I'm ecstatic to be a part of it!