Here we go...!

We are on Day 3 today! I am feeling very positive about our start. The students seem to have grown as individuals since March, as well as bonded a bit more as a class. We still have work to do to build our family, but they are up for another great year!

This week we are exploring our individuality as represented by our fingerprints and focusing hard on the idiom "fill a bucket".  We are learning to be "bucket fillers" not "spillers or dippers" when it comes to interacting with EVERYONE around school, making this a positive place and a "mean-free zone". This metaphor of "filling a bucket" is going to remain with us this year and I am looking to link with other classes to expand this message.

Technology at LAS and in our classroom!
We have come so far! It's awesome and your children will certainly be trailblazers in this area.  A few notes on recent initiatives that have been communicated to you via email or letters home (such as the Google info coming home today).

Chromebooks:  If your family is choosing to participate in this purchase program, I believe the deadline is September 6th. Contact Zach Lamare (zlamare@sau21.org) if you need this information again, but if you have questions about classroom use, you can direct those to me.  It is my understanding that there will be a second round for this opportunity mid-year. If your family is in the position where you could take advantage of this opportunity and you believe your child is ready, go for it! A parent asked me a few weeks ago through email what my thoughts were on this and I am going to copy and paste a portion of my response here:

Some of the tasks we will use them for are:
-Academic practice sites such as IXL and Vocab/Spelling City
-creating online notebooks using Evernote
-using Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Forms and more with Google Apps for Education (GAFE) accounts
-Edmodo: learning games, sharing resources, collaborative projects, literature discussion groups
-Making recordings (such as for fluency) on SoundCloud

And that is just the beginning! 

That all being said- It's important to know that these things can also, and have been, accessed on school computers.  The benefit of having the Chromebook is an inexpensive (comparatively speaking) way for a student to always have access to their learning and creations.  I teach my students not to be device-dependent so they can accomplish goals on any device. 

You can read more about my goals regarding easy access to technology on my other blog by clicking here. 

Other devices: It is my understanding that students are permitted to bring in personal laptops and/or tablets, iPads etc. that they already own that we will use for learning purposes! I believe locks for lockers have been ordered in case you are worried about that element.  If your student has a device, I really would love to guide them in using it as a learning tool so they can experience that devices are more than just games!  I don't know Zach's process yet with registering these devices with the school so I will let you know when it is ok for students to bring them in, get them set up with school wi-fi, and then they will learn about these devices as learning tools.

Google Apps for Education (GAFE)

YAY!!! I mentioned this in my post to you a few weeks ago and today the information and permissions will come home.  It is a long document and can be hard to follow all the policy language, so I thought I would sum it up for you:

-GAFE provides students with their own accounts so that they can learn to use these tools appropriately with regard to learning.  Last year, this class learned to use Google Docs, as well as the commenting feature, by me creating documents, sharing it with them via Edmodo, then they could access their documents. Whew! NOW they will be able to create their own docs, collaborate with me and classmates, as well as learn how to create useful surveys and analyze the data they provide via graphs and detailed summaries.

-While students are issued an email address (@lastigers.org) I am not sure I have a use for this quite yet in our classroom.  We have done quite well with communication amongst each other via Edmodo and I will most likely just stick with that unless I feel a need to open up this tool.  This element can be turned off and I need to find out more about this.  That being said, everything via GAFE is monitored just as I monitor through Edmodo.

Edmodo

The next time you have the chance, create an Edmodo account and link yourself with your student's account.  Have your child login and you will see, on the left of the screen, a parent code.  You will be asked to type in this code when you join. This links you to you child's account and you can always see what they are posting (your child only) if you are interested. I know some of you have already done this and I highly recommend it, not because you need to monitor this, but so you can see the types of things they are doing within this amazing platform. You can read about my love for Edmodo just about anywhere on my blog- it has opened up so many possibilities for me to differentiate for these learners.  

OK! That's enough for now- As always email me at: jkarabinas@sau21.org , call, or stop in if you want to talk!

:) Jaclyn Karabinas

PS: I am putting together a list of resources (links, articles etc.) regarding Chromebooks, GAFE and general 1:1 or BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) information and will get it out to you at some point this weekend (Norah permitting! :) )  along with link for a parent survey I would like you to complete.