What is working in my netbook class?
Year 5/6
-
In mathematics, it's fantastic to be able to access Digital
Learning Objects ( DLO's)on the NZ maths website to provide targeted
follow up for group teaching.
- The new skills that the students are learning e.g. using Tux paint
to create pictures to add to their documents, adding links to their
writing, using keyboard shortcuts, increasing their typing speed,
cutting, copying, pasting and editing their writing and adding photos to
their documents and many others. They are learning so many new ways to
use the netbook to improve their learning.
- Having Sarah coming in to work with small groups of my students, individuals, the class and me. She's great. Thanks Sarah.
- Nevyn is also fantastic. I emailed him with a problem on a
student's netbook and he was there the same afternoon and solved it for
her. Thanks Nevyn.
- My class Google Site - This is working really well. I have
everything the kids need to learn on there (other than school journals
to read). The kids now know what to do and it is helping them to take
responsibility for their own learning. I think we could sit on the field
and have the classroom walls/resources siting on our lap through our
site.
- The kids are getting really confident with doc's and logging in
etc. They can navigate really easily through their apps, and blog's.
- Students creating and filling in forms to gain greater knowledge of the text they have read in reading
- Students using Picasa to store their screenshot of their work so
they have a record of their work/progress. This is great as it then
doesn't live on the netbook and can't be lost through a re-image.
- Using Black Dog for Basic Facts http://www.blackdog.net/games/math/flash/index.html
- Using Rogo Puzzles to reinforce addition and engagement http://www.rogopuzzle.co.nz/paper-rogos/intro-rogo-1/
- Basically everything now. All going rather swimmingly.
- We've had two netbooks needing repairs after thorough checking at our end. The system online of filling in a Google form for Tech Central works! After completing the form - I've received an email from Tech Central followed by a courier ticket the very next day. Took about 7 days for unit to be fixed and returned.
- I don't know whether it is Nevyn's latest image or the additional wireless APs, but our kids have had reliable access to the internet for the last 2 weeks. When they drop off, it simply reconnects all by itself. It just works.
Year 7/8
- Uploading PDFs for group work. (Paper and time saver) Not necessarily a shift in pedagodgy but valuable all the same.
- Individual netbooks allow quick (mostly) access to personal sites (e.g. docs, blogs, etc) and to resources (e.g. 'flash' games, etc) for learning. This makes the 'process' (and, hopefully, the desired outcomes of using these online tools productively much more achievable.
- Telling students that they are allowed to chat with me anytime, in regards to letting me know (secretly) if someone is somewhere they are not supposed to be e.g games etc.
- Students fully engaged in learning due to them having their own learning tool
What is not working in my netbook class
Year 5/6
- My major problem is getting the netbooks away quickly. Nothing to be done about it really other than changing the way a door swings open and that won't happen.
- I have two students that do not have their proper Google login as yet. The information has been sent but nothing has come back as yet.
- I have two students who have a netbook allocated but as yet have not paid anything towards it. Neither parent came to Three Way Conferences even though I especially invited them.
One other parent I invited did come and we were able to organize a sponsor to pay the initial deposit and the parent has agreed to pay the $15 monthly. - It's not that it's not working, but I am facing kid's becoming really onto it and starting to want to get off task and chat etc. Under control at the moment.
Year 7/8
- We really would benefit from being able to record sound / video on the netbooks without plugging in microphones etc.
What I would like help with in my netbook class
Year 5/6
- More time to be able to conference with writing to be able to post more regularly. Time to post.
Other
Year 5/6
- I just love them and so do my students.
Year 7/8 - We don't have a full school of notebooks BUT we have classes timetabled into the ICT Lab to carry out writing tasks. This works and students are enjoying the process.
- I have a new student and I want to allocate one of the non-paying student's netbook to him as his parent is willing to pay. Is that fair?
Present - April 7th 2011
Tamaki College: Karen F, Sheila, Christine, Mr Science
Tamaki Primary: Kyla
Glenbrae: Jay
Pt England: Andrea, Helen K, Helen Squi, Jaybz, Ted, Andrea, Sandy
St Pius X: Ana, Eloise,
Panmure Bridge: Joy,
Facilitators:
Dorothy, Sarah
Colleen, Nevyn
Notes taken by Karen and Sarah of discussion at the meeting:
What is working?- The writing and recrafting and their keenness to do so.
- The students are being clever and finding things and are becoming more and more teachers for each other.
- Collaboration - students working on the same document is great
- Literacy - instant access to theasurus, dictionary
- Being able to see what each other are doing
- Not having to share.
- Writing something a lot more than nothing - it is becoming easier.
- Having the class Google Site always open to reference straight away.
- Having the Google Site accessible for the students means not having to always project it onto the screen; they can have it open on their own screen
- Buddy conferencing and getting the students commenting on each others docs
- Scanning to PDF’s rather than photocopying......eg: Scan work for maths and share it to the individual students.
- Starting to talk to the teacher more about what they are doing more immediately.
- More accountable to provide evidence of their work.
- Google graphs in spreadsheets is easy and effective to use.
- Motivation to write is a lot more evident.
- Punctuation is easier to see when work is typed.
- Sense of pride in their work.
- Management wise it is good
- Making comments on the students writing.
- Being able to share tasks with students and not having the students loose their pieces of paper.
- The Netbook Repairs website has been tested with problem netbooks and it works.
- The students are finding things themselves and showing each other things.
- Chance for collaborative work is so much easier to do, even working multiple groups together, the teacher can see what they have been doing.
- Focus with the students - noise level and engagement is working well
- Using chat to enable your students to share information with teacher - they don’t want to seem like a nark!!
- Giving input to each others work is fun for them.
- Motivation to write - length and quality is better than in their books
- Chat can be used for anonymous tale telling.
- Exploring study ladder for online reading. http://studyladder.co.nz
- Students taking a screen capture to show what they achieved during the lessons.
- Students are enjoying the links and are also finding a lot of their own links to share with the class and are giving them to the teacher.
- Being able to go and see older students work through the blogs builds up their pride with what they are doing
- Collaborative learning after hours.
- Just in time learning ( ???)
- Responsibility to take care of netbooks- eg making sure the netbookss are charged - seems to be transferring to other areas of school life like being responsible for clothing!
- Zero tolerance of doing things they shouldn’t seems to stop them.
Management ideas that are working- Having the teacher dashboard open on the data projector - Shows the students that the dashboard is accessible by the teacher.
- Randomly commenting on students work during class to let them know that you are watching.
- Being pro active about filing the docs in the correct folders.
- Getting students to file documents before lunch so that they will do it quickly as they want to go to lunch.
- Get
students to go to All Items - More options - not in collections -
organise the document and then it will disappear from the list.
- Have desks positioned so you can see the screens. If students are not on task - let them know that they will have to move their desk so the screen was facing the teacher.
- They know the expectations but are tempted off task with more to do on the netbooks.
- Bling time given as rewards - the students are less likely to do it in class.
- Incorporate designing the background as a task.
- Blanket bans on blinging at school, plenty of time at home.
- It is their pen- altering the class rules to include the netbooks.
- Looking at the history of the machines to check what they have been doing.
- Check the cookies for internet history - successful till the kids learn to clear them themselves before the check!!
- Having assessment tick sheet/ rubric shared so peer pressure can help.
What is not working?
- Connection to the wireless. ( Tamaki College staff had various things to say about this!!)
- Maths class not getting students to order a calculator, a term later they have no netbook and no calculator.
- Management issues - keeping students on task.
- Students being off-task to bling or chat during sessions.
- Things that need to be put in place, and getting them lined up to be done in the time available.
- So
many things to get students to learn - finding the time and
having the patience to get things to happen (not a bad thing, just
frustrating sometimes).
- Expecting them to be able to do things that they can't.
- Understanding that things don’t happen quickly........transfer of knowledge can be tedious, but this is getting better.
- Having the time to maximise the learning and build up my knowledge.
- Power failure problems in the teaching block stops the airport working.
- Patience to organise everything to maximise what the students are getting out of the experience.
- Technical issues that hold things up.
- Putting
the machines away at the end of the day can be an issue if there are
timetable changes that affect the normal flow of things. Can't drop everything quickly if you have netbooks.
What would I like help with in my class?- Google presentations, building up for their skills with presenting in their netbooks.
- Google spreadsheets
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