Day One With 1:1

Our first day with the Chromebooks was full of excitement (and lots of questions!) When the students walked in and saw big bins full of red cases, their eyes lit up and they knew immediately what was inside.

Even though our students are very familiar with using the Chromebooks, they have never had one to call their own. So Christi and I planned a few activities to do with them and let them have some time to just play around.

First we took a few minutes to go over our “Chromebook Guidelines and Expectations.” We were surprised by how many questions the kids had. Of course they wanted to know if they could get their own cover or case (unfortunately our district is not allowing this for the pilot) and they wanted to know how they could use them at home. They were particularly interested in finding out how to add apps and games to their Chromebook and wondered if they could take it with them on vacation :) 
Once they opened their Chromebooks they logged in and took a picture to set as their login pic. Their smiles went from ear to ear. Then we took them through Chromebook Bootcamp. The bootcamp presentation was created by Sue Ferdon (a tech coach at South Park Elementary School). It teaches the students more about the Chromebooks and allows them to become more familiar with some of it’s special features. The students really liked the tips and tricks with the keyboard. We gave them some time to play with these tools. Then they had a chance to personalize their background and settings.

Our district provided the students with bright red Belkin cases that fit the Chromebooks like a sleeve. Since they are all the same we wanted the kids to have something personal that they could use to tell theirs apart from their classmates. So we spent some time letting them create a “luggage tag.” Christi’s class was given half of an index card and a sticker with their name on it. They were then allowed to cut pieces of scrapbook paper to decorate their tag any way they wanted to. Larissa’s class was given a piece of paper with their name on it and a border around their name. They then got to choose a piece of scrapbook paper to put their name on. We then laminated the tags and attached them to the zipper with a binder ring. Both classes’ tags turned out to be very cute!

Overall it was a successful launch to our pilot and the students and parents have had nothing but positive feedback.

Here is a review of the things you should know and do for your first day…

• make sure all of the Chromebooks are charged (Some of Christi’s died and had to be charged before they could even be used) 

• have a plan of where you are going to store them
• make luggage tags for the cases to tell them apart
• plan for longer than you anticipate to go through your introduction, rules, and “play time.” The kids will have more questions than you think.
• be prepared to answer questions and know what your expectations and guidelines are going to be.
• have some sort of communication with the parents prior to sending the Chromebooks home and be prepared to answer their questions as well. (Check our Parent Resource Tab for all of the documents, presentations, and resources we provided our parents. Also look for questions and answers that we received from our parent meeting in the FAQs tab.)