Pip Cleaves from the DET presented this PechaKucha at the MANTLE teacher librarian conference in Newcastle last week. In the PechaKucha format of 20 slides, with 20 seconds for each, she covered a bunch of web 2.0 tools you might like to explore.
Here's the link in case the above doesn't work for you:
http://www.slideshare.net/piphowell/mantle-conference-13th-may-2011-7938859
Cheers
Ruth
Showing posts with label DER laptops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DER laptops. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thursday, May 13, 2010
DER laptops Year Two & Digital Citizenship
After a delightful time at the Mantle conference in Newcastle, it's been full steam ahead at school on the technology front, as our Year 9 Digital Education Revolution laptops are being distributed this week. I've fished out my seven things to try week 1 list and will be going through that and the revised Student Responsibilities part of our school's laptop policy at a staff meeting. Tomorrow, with the Year 9s, they get to Experience my PowerPoint on Student Responsibilities in period 1, before the handout begins. I wonder if their eyes and ears will function? - they can't wait to get their laptops.
Word is that the NSW DER team are preparing teaching materials on digital citizenship which will be available next term, so if that's an area your school is looking at, it's good to know that resources are on the way. If you need resources now, there's LOTS of digital citizenship material around on the net: eg. the nine elements at digitalcitizenship.net, BrainPop's animations and activities, and the Australian Government's Cybersmart website.
Cheers
Ruth
Word is that the NSW DER team are preparing teaching materials on digital citizenship which will be available next term, so if that's an area your school is looking at, it's good to know that resources are on the way. If you need resources now, there's LOTS of digital citizenship material around on the net: eg. the nine elements at digitalcitizenship.net, BrainPop's animations and activities, and the Australian Government's Cybersmart website.
Cheers
Ruth
Friday, October 23, 2009
Skerricks in the world: the maths teachers love us!
It's always kinda fun to see the referrals to this blog - how people are finding it. The major answer is often googling. A recent mention from a maths blog, however, was a lovely coup (maths teachers not always being the most frequent users of libraries). Mathsclass.net has an entry about 'DERing with Year 9' (great verb - to der!) which mentions my seven things to try week 1 list from this blog entry. Thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys! Not only does the Mathclass.net blog entry have other useful web links, it's one I'll be able to share with our teachers - not just the maths ones. One of the useful things about referrals is the chance to find out about great new online resources.
.
Cheers
Ruth
.
PS. I've just written a piece for SLAV on the seven things list - it will be out in their journal early next month. It seems to be a useful list that's finding a bunch of friends, which is great.
.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Laptop Policy - another view
Our school's laptop policy is still being tweaked and revised, evolving in light of experience.
I was interested to read Will Richardson's take on school computer policies on Weblogg-ed. Make sure you read the comments, too.
As a significant architect of our school's policy - not its final arbiter, but a carpenter creating a structure - one focus was to put things in positive terms, wherever possible. One does not of course want to discourage students from using their laptops - instead, fuelling and directing their enthusiasm is a great educational opportunity. On the other hand, the reality of life in schools is that it's important that students are aware of the necessary boundaries, such as respecting copyright, and treating other people respectfully.
So ours is still a work in progress. Feedback from the students has been positive - they appreciate clarity, because it's calmed some fears they had, from gossip/chat, about what might happen if...
Cheers
Ruth
I was interested to read Will Richardson's take on school computer policies on Weblogg-ed. Make sure you read the comments, too.
As a significant architect of our school's policy - not its final arbiter, but a carpenter creating a structure - one focus was to put things in positive terms, wherever possible. One does not of course want to discourage students from using their laptops - instead, fuelling and directing their enthusiasm is a great educational opportunity. On the other hand, the reality of life in schools is that it's important that students are aware of the necessary boundaries, such as respecting copyright, and treating other people respectfully.
So ours is still a work in progress. Feedback from the students has been positive - they appreciate clarity, because it's calmed some fears they had, from gossip/chat, about what might happen if...
Cheers
Ruth
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Laptops, Day 4: so kids, what do you think?
Before the end of term on Friday this week, the school has decided to survey the students to see how they're going with their laptops at this early stage. A couple of classes did this as a group talkytalky exercise in class this morning; on the basis of that, I refined the survey to fine-tune some questions, and every year 9 student has been given the opportunity to participate via email.
Here are the questions we've asked - they are open-ended by design, to give room for a variety of answers (although I know it's more time-consuming to collate):
From the talkytalky this morning, the most popular answer to the final question after "unblock sites like MSN and My Space" was, interestingly, let people have them in any colour they want: which is a marked lack of enthusiasm for a perfectly pleasant metallic red and faintly bewildering in that they are free to personalise their laptops with stickers etc, so they can cover up the offending red. (Kids. Some days they're shallow enough to paddle in, aren't they??!!).
Cheers
Ruth
PS If you use or base a survey on the list above, can you please credit its source? Thank you.
Here are the questions we've asked - they are open-ended by design, to give room for a variety of answers (although I know it's more time-consuming to collate):
- These are things I like about my laptop:
- These are things I don’t like about my laptop:
- These are things that haven’t worked:
- Please note any of these that have been fixed, and if so how (eg. teacher advice, TSO assistance, a friend helped me, it worked the next time I tried it):
- These are sites/software I would like to have unblocked:
- Schoolwork related:
- Personal interest (eg. MySpace, MSN):
- The school guidelines (outlined on Friday) were clear? Yes / No / Mostly
- If you chose No or Mostly, please add what could be done to improve them:
- Is there anything else that you think should be added to the school guidelines?
- I have used my laptop in class in the following subjects:
- With my laptop, I hope that I can: (if you mention replacing books, please be specific –eg. workbooks, textbooks)
- If I was in charge of the laptop program for the Department of Education, I would:
From the talkytalky this morning, the most popular answer to the final question after "unblock sites like MSN and My Space" was, interestingly, let people have them in any colour they want: which is a marked lack of enthusiasm for a perfectly pleasant metallic red and faintly bewildering in that they are free to personalise their laptops with stickers etc, so they can cover up the offending red. (Kids. Some days they're shallow enough to paddle in, aren't they??!!).
Cheers
Ruth
PS If you use or base a survey on the list above, can you please credit its source? Thank you.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Laptops Day 3: some days are diamonds
Already the day 1 lunchtime library laptop mayhem has settled down. As you would expect, the kids who want to run around at lunchtime and play ball are back at that. Those who have come into the library have learned that I am a regularly-patrolling, interested observer (so if they're planning mischief, the library maybe ain't the best place to be laptopping). I've had discussions with some kids about copyright (I'm sure this movie on my USB is legal Miss....No kiddo, I'm sure it's not!) and so forth.
Period 2, a teacher booked in to do a lesson we had jointly planned. It was based on a website - we'd had the website unblocked by the DET a month or two ago, so it was fine. The teacher had already had the students set up a notebook in One Note for this subject, and a page with the correct URL of the site.
The best laid plans...
Problem 1: about 1/3 of the laptops wouldn't connect to the internet. I checked the wireless bars on them - most were showing four white bars, which is dandy-fine. A couple had these red-x-ed out (hmmm, dunno what that means apart from it oughta find the wireless and it isn't). The class was the only one in the library using wireless, so there were plenty of access spots available (given that we have 60).
Problem 2: any of the laptops which could get onto the internet could not load the site properly due to a Java problem. All-righty then. Bit of a problem, this, since the whole point of the lesson was the Java-based application on the page. I've been loaned a pool laptop (ie. the same one, same configuration as the kids have, not a teacher laptop) and when I logged in to that, it connected to the internet with no problems and loaded the site fully. The teacher logged in on her teacher laptop and again the site worked, no hassles. Hmmmm. A tad irritating.
We called the TSO (Technical Support Officer) who was free and came down and spent the rest of the lesson tweaking individual machines re the internet problem. The Java problem is apparently one with Internet Explorer and we asked if this could be addressed as soon as possible. Which means that, for now, the lesson as planned is impossible to do.
[insert naughty word, said in the mind not with the mouth]
It took a little while to establish the widespread nature of the problem - checking the URL entered and so forth. Other parts of the site are still blocked, and google searches to get to the site (students tried this when the given URL didn't load properly) came up as blocked too. By the time we had worked out how badly things had gone awry, a number of students had switched their attention to other entrancing possibilities of their new red babies.
Plan B lesson - one always needs a plan B. We got the students to look up the artist we were focusing on, using Google images, to see his work. My laptop travelled around the class so they could see what they should have been doing and how it worked. Salvage work in progress...
But we really had done our homework before the lesson, and couldn't, as far as I'm aware, have anticipated a multiple failure of this kind. It was, as you can imagine, on the frustrating end of frustrating for the teacher, for the class, and for me.
So we'll have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again. And make sure we always have a Plan B lesson (or two) up our sleeves.
Cheers
Ruth
Period 2, a teacher booked in to do a lesson we had jointly planned. It was based on a website - we'd had the website unblocked by the DET a month or two ago, so it was fine. The teacher had already had the students set up a notebook in One Note for this subject, and a page with the correct URL of the site.
The best laid plans...
Problem 1: about 1/3 of the laptops wouldn't connect to the internet. I checked the wireless bars on them - most were showing four white bars, which is dandy-fine. A couple had these red-x-ed out (hmmm, dunno what that means apart from it oughta find the wireless and it isn't). The class was the only one in the library using wireless, so there were plenty of access spots available (given that we have 60).
Problem 2: any of the laptops which could get onto the internet could not load the site properly due to a Java problem. All-righty then. Bit of a problem, this, since the whole point of the lesson was the Java-based application on the page. I've been loaned a pool laptop (ie. the same one, same configuration as the kids have, not a teacher laptop) and when I logged in to that, it connected to the internet with no problems and loaded the site fully. The teacher logged in on her teacher laptop and again the site worked, no hassles. Hmmmm. A tad irritating.
We called the TSO (Technical Support Officer) who was free and came down and spent the rest of the lesson tweaking individual machines re the internet problem. The Java problem is apparently one with Internet Explorer and we asked if this could be addressed as soon as possible. Which means that, for now, the lesson as planned is impossible to do.
[insert naughty word, said in the mind not with the mouth]
It took a little while to establish the widespread nature of the problem - checking the URL entered and so forth. Other parts of the site are still blocked, and google searches to get to the site (students tried this when the given URL didn't load properly) came up as blocked too. By the time we had worked out how badly things had gone awry, a number of students had switched their attention to other entrancing possibilities of their new red babies.
Plan B lesson - one always needs a plan B. We got the students to look up the artist we were focusing on, using Google images, to see his work. My laptop travelled around the class so they could see what they should have been doing and how it worked. Salvage work in progress...
But we really had done our homework before the lesson, and couldn't, as far as I'm aware, have anticipated a multiple failure of this kind. It was, as you can imagine, on the frustrating end of frustrating for the teacher, for the class, and for me.
So we'll have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again. And make sure we always have a Plan B lesson (or two) up our sleeves.
Cheers
Ruth
Monday, September 28, 2009
Laptops, day two (+ 7 things to try)
Day two: not as frenetic as day 1, thanks be to all the gods and little fishes.
In the library, we were busy, but not overwhelmed with laptoppers during breaks. As there are 60 wireless access points in the library, and some of these may be accessible/within range from outside the library, it's not always possible to tell if an internet connection fails because the 60 spots are gone, or if it's a computer problem.
I showed a number of students how to auto-hide their taskbar; on the small acreage of a netbook screen, even half an inch is valuable.
Several students I know to have A Record of Evil tried to hide in the senior study. I am of course loath to think ill of anyone who would try to hide in the most hideable corner of the library (and Year 9 students who don't have senior study access until they are in Year 11). They and a number of other students were doing a bunch of Bluetoothing of files between themselves. One of those laptop things which can be used for Good or Evil. Unhelpfully for them I was doing the library rounds very actively, and seemed to be popping by to look over their shoulders at their screens in a way that must have seemed quite inconveniently frequent (if it was Evil they had in mind). Now why would you think their shifty body language might have prompted my interest?
The majority of the laptoppers were engaged in innocent amusement, in changing the colour of their displays in the control panel (yay! I'm an emo! I can make lots of stuff black!), playing quiet games, accessing the internet. Lots of footy images as desktop backgrounds on boys' computers. One boy looking up pictures of cute kittens (which is a tad unusual, 'cute kittens' and 'cute puppies' more often being popular image searches among Year 7 girls - but hey, to each their own).
The gender balance on our desktop computers in the library is reasonably even; our laptoppers at lunch today were nearly all boys. Despite the accounts I've heard from some other schools, lunchtime in the library was nothing like an invasion of the Visigoths, thanks be. The structure we have in place, the guidelines outlined to them on Friday, must help in clarifying the many things that are OK and the few things that are not.
One thing I had done last week for the staff meeting was prepare a list of seven things any Year 9 teacher could try with their Year 9 class, madly hungry to do stuff on their new red babies. This is designed to be general, and simple. There is certainly specific subject-related software that could be used as well by particular faculties, but I wanted to focus on existing technology, general computer knowledge and suggest activities that could be done whether or not the teacher themselves had a DER laptop (we got 27 teacher laptops in the T1 rollout, for 70 staff.)
If you'd like to read 7 THINGS TO TRY WITH THE LAPTOPS, WEEK ONE, then you'll be charmed to know I've put a copy in Google Docs. Click on the link above to read it. I've had a number of requests for it - if you use it in your school, please leave my name on it. (It is a copyright document: I am happy for it to be used for non-profit educational purposes by schools/education systems. Any other use, please contact me first.)
One of the Geography teachers used this as a template/prompt, and her class was very happy to be using their laptops in class straightaway. For some other teachers, the list was a springboard to thinking of what they could/might do in connection with our laptopped-up Year 9 students.
So we got through day two, and it's onwards to day three. Some stuff came up in class time today to which I had immediate answers, others were things referred on to the TSO (Technical Support Officer).
Cheers
Ruth
In the library, we were busy, but not overwhelmed with laptoppers during breaks. As there are 60 wireless access points in the library, and some of these may be accessible/within range from outside the library, it's not always possible to tell if an internet connection fails because the 60 spots are gone, or if it's a computer problem.
I showed a number of students how to auto-hide their taskbar; on the small acreage of a netbook screen, even half an inch is valuable.
Several students I know to have A Record of Evil tried to hide in the senior study. I am of course loath to think ill of anyone who would try to hide in the most hideable corner of the library (and Year 9 students who don't have senior study access until they are in Year 11). They and a number of other students were doing a bunch of Bluetoothing of files between themselves. One of those laptop things which can be used for Good or Evil. Unhelpfully for them I was doing the library rounds very actively, and seemed to be popping by to look over their shoulders at their screens in a way that must have seemed quite inconveniently frequent (if it was Evil they had in mind). Now why would you think their shifty body language might have prompted my interest?
The majority of the laptoppers were engaged in innocent amusement, in changing the colour of their displays in the control panel (yay! I'm an emo! I can make lots of stuff black!), playing quiet games, accessing the internet. Lots of footy images as desktop backgrounds on boys' computers. One boy looking up pictures of cute kittens (which is a tad unusual, 'cute kittens' and 'cute puppies' more often being popular image searches among Year 7 girls - but hey, to each their own).
The gender balance on our desktop computers in the library is reasonably even; our laptoppers at lunch today were nearly all boys. Despite the accounts I've heard from some other schools, lunchtime in the library was nothing like an invasion of the Visigoths, thanks be. The structure we have in place, the guidelines outlined to them on Friday, must help in clarifying the many things that are OK and the few things that are not.
One thing I had done last week for the staff meeting was prepare a list of seven things any Year 9 teacher could try with their Year 9 class, madly hungry to do stuff on their new red babies. This is designed to be general, and simple. There is certainly specific subject-related software that could be used as well by particular faculties, but I wanted to focus on existing technology, general computer knowledge and suggest activities that could be done whether or not the teacher themselves had a DER laptop (we got 27 teacher laptops in the T1 rollout, for 70 staff.)
If you'd like to read 7 THINGS TO TRY WITH THE LAPTOPS, WEEK ONE, then you'll be charmed to know I've put a copy in Google Docs. Click on the link above to read it. I've had a number of requests for it - if you use it in your school, please leave my name on it. (It is a copyright document: I am happy for it to be used for non-profit educational purposes by schools/education systems. Any other use, please contact me first.)
One of the Geography teachers used this as a template/prompt, and her class was very happy to be using their laptops in class straightaway. For some other teachers, the list was a springboard to thinking of what they could/might do in connection with our laptopped-up Year 9 students.
So we got through day two, and it's onwards to day three. Some stuff came up in class time today to which I had immediate answers, others were things referred on to the TSO (Technical Support Officer).
Cheers
Ruth
Oh brave new world: laptops, day one
It was announced on assembly on Thursday last week that the Year 9 laptops would be distributed on Friday. These are the netbooks being issued as part of the Digital Education Revolution, a federally funded program. I thought I"d document here what day one was like; this is such a change we're ushering in,
Friday morning you would have thought Santa Claus was coming multiplied to the power of ten. The buzz around the school was palpable - not just year nine students. Before school in the library, the noise level/fizz was significantly higher than usual, fuelled anticipation boiling over.
Up to the period after lunch, the library was a zoo (ie. madly busy). Booked classes were coming in as per bookings, plus every period brought a new wave of Year 9 students to receive their laptops. Each handout procedure involved a bit of logging in/checking. Our computer co-ordinator had raided many Coles supermarkets for 99c recyclable bags (some Simpsons, some Harry Potter, some High School Musical) and so each student got a bag containing the laptop, charger, handbook etc. (good idea). The laptops and so forth had been stored in our library security lockup, and so there was mad buzzing in and out of there all day, bags and boxes and students coming to ask questions. One of my assistants stayed at the borrowing desk by the security room door all day to control traffic there.
By lunchtime they all had their laptops, and the library (where there are 60 wireless access points) was full of kids. I was grateful that the computer co-ordinator stayed around all lunchtime, so was available for questions/assistance.
It's a learning curve for us all. Lunchtime was crazy-busy, loud, fizzing with excitement. I figure you go with it, day one, and just delineate the lines as is necessary without stomping on the joy (a rude little twerp is a rude little twerp regardless, as I had cause to point out to one impertinent boy). One thing I did decide pretty quickly was that our reading retreat area - which only seats about 18 - is going to remain for (book) reading - laptoppers have plenty of desks/tables to use and I am keen to keep this area for comfy silent individual reading, to serve those students who love it for this.
Some students couldn't log on to the internet. Judging by the number of students in the library, it was almost certainly because we had well over 60 laptoppers in. So memo for self and students: log in early if you want to be in the 60. The range of the wireless units is such that they are likely to find that outside the library they'll find 'hot spots', so it won't need 60 inside the library to mean those 60 access options are used up. Not all the school is wireless yet, but it won't take them long to work out where in the playground they can find other hot spots.
As I have had a major role in drafting the school's laptop policy, I was detailed, in the period after lunch, to talk about this to all of Year 9 together. I went through the guidelines we had established (these had been discussed at executive and staff meetings) and aimed to do this in a positive way.
To start, I asked them all, "Who here knows how to drive a car?" (Bear in mind none of these students are old enough for a learner's permit, but many would have access, on their own property/acreage or others', in our semi-rural location, to try driving on private land). As I expected, lots of hands.
"Leave your hand up if you have driven a car." Still plenty.
"Leave your hand up if you have driven a car on a public road." All hands vanish. "OK, so that's what we're looking at here. There's what is possible, and what is acceptable and appropriate."
And on I went; but this analogy did seem to be a useful one to make. The guidelines/responsibilities are based on the NSW Department of Education and Training documents and school policies. We will be revisiting our draft document about a month into next term, to see if it's serving our purposes or if there is anything else we need to clarifyadd/revise.
Tough audience, I must admit, over 200 students crammed into the library so they could see our screen (I had prepared a PowerPoint, so there was something for their eyes to see, rather than just having them listen to me) - they were BUSTING to be on their laptops. On the other hand, it's useful to have clarified the guidelines/boundaries right at the start, so we all know where we are. And I appreciated the round of applause the students gave me at the end (however much of it was fuelled by relief that I had finished!!).
Based on info from other schools where the laptops have already been rolled out, there are challenges ahead for the library, during break times for example. The way things are this week is likely to still reflect the initial excitement. I'm sure some students will test the boundaries. We could see, amid Friday's zoo, that the seminar-style layout of tables in nonfiction was working well. Likewise some students just settled into a corner with their laptop. My current thinking is that general library rules still apply, so a bunch of noisy gamesters can hie themselves out the door, but if a kid is being quiet and not disturbing others, then they can carry on. As I spoke with them all on Friday, I made the distinction between the playground (out there) and the library as a learning space (in here, where I was going through the rules/responsibilities). The Principal has reiterated that the library is my domain where I am delegated to set the rules/standards of behaviour.
We have clarified with our students that they are to respect copyright, so pirated games/video are unacceptable anywhere. I am sure in this first week (it's our last week of term) there will be further clarification/reminding happening. I'll wait to see how big the crowd gets at lunchtime- I don't want to restrict numbers, but at the same time I do want to preserve an acceptable.manageable environment (for reasons of safety/doable supervision, for starters). This week, I might have both my school assistants (I have 1.5 each day) on duty at lunchtime, so we are all three on deck (normally it's one plus me). I'm not sure what extra teacher support I may get at lunchtime, if any.
It's a learning curve. We'll see how we go, and look for a path forward that serves us all. Right now, that student excitement is a great opportunity in our classrooms, the challenge being to build on it and harness it to enhance their learning and thus their opportunities in life.
It's an adventure!
Cheers
Ruth
Friday morning you would have thought Santa Claus was coming multiplied to the power of ten. The buzz around the school was palpable - not just year nine students. Before school in the library, the noise level/fizz was significantly higher than usual, fuelled anticipation boiling over.
Up to the period after lunch, the library was a zoo (ie. madly busy). Booked classes were coming in as per bookings, plus every period brought a new wave of Year 9 students to receive their laptops. Each handout procedure involved a bit of logging in/checking. Our computer co-ordinator had raided many Coles supermarkets for 99c recyclable bags (some Simpsons, some Harry Potter, some High School Musical) and so each student got a bag containing the laptop, charger, handbook etc. (good idea). The laptops and so forth had been stored in our library security lockup, and so there was mad buzzing in and out of there all day, bags and boxes and students coming to ask questions. One of my assistants stayed at the borrowing desk by the security room door all day to control traffic there.
By lunchtime they all had their laptops, and the library (where there are 60 wireless access points) was full of kids. I was grateful that the computer co-ordinator stayed around all lunchtime, so was available for questions/assistance.
It's a learning curve for us all. Lunchtime was crazy-busy, loud, fizzing with excitement. I figure you go with it, day one, and just delineate the lines as is necessary without stomping on the joy (a rude little twerp is a rude little twerp regardless, as I had cause to point out to one impertinent boy). One thing I did decide pretty quickly was that our reading retreat area - which only seats about 18 - is going to remain for (book) reading - laptoppers have plenty of desks/tables to use and I am keen to keep this area for comfy silent individual reading, to serve those students who love it for this.
Some students couldn't log on to the internet. Judging by the number of students in the library, it was almost certainly because we had well over 60 laptoppers in. So memo for self and students: log in early if you want to be in the 60. The range of the wireless units is such that they are likely to find that outside the library they'll find 'hot spots', so it won't need 60 inside the library to mean those 60 access options are used up. Not all the school is wireless yet, but it won't take them long to work out where in the playground they can find other hot spots.
As I have had a major role in drafting the school's laptop policy, I was detailed, in the period after lunch, to talk about this to all of Year 9 together. I went through the guidelines we had established (these had been discussed at executive and staff meetings) and aimed to do this in a positive way.
To start, I asked them all, "Who here knows how to drive a car?" (Bear in mind none of these students are old enough for a learner's permit, but many would have access, on their own property/acreage or others', in our semi-rural location, to try driving on private land). As I expected, lots of hands.
"Leave your hand up if you have driven a car." Still plenty.
"Leave your hand up if you have driven a car on a public road." All hands vanish. "OK, so that's what we're looking at here. There's what is possible, and what is acceptable and appropriate."
And on I went; but this analogy did seem to be a useful one to make. The guidelines/responsibilities are based on the NSW Department of Education and Training documents and school policies. We will be revisiting our draft document about a month into next term, to see if it's serving our purposes or if there is anything else we need to clarifyadd/revise.
Tough audience, I must admit, over 200 students crammed into the library so they could see our screen (I had prepared a PowerPoint, so there was something for their eyes to see, rather than just having them listen to me) - they were BUSTING to be on their laptops. On the other hand, it's useful to have clarified the guidelines/boundaries right at the start, so we all know where we are. And I appreciated the round of applause the students gave me at the end (however much of it was fuelled by relief that I had finished!!).
Based on info from other schools where the laptops have already been rolled out, there are challenges ahead for the library, during break times for example. The way things are this week is likely to still reflect the initial excitement. I'm sure some students will test the boundaries. We could see, amid Friday's zoo, that the seminar-style layout of tables in nonfiction was working well. Likewise some students just settled into a corner with their laptop. My current thinking is that general library rules still apply, so a bunch of noisy gamesters can hie themselves out the door, but if a kid is being quiet and not disturbing others, then they can carry on. As I spoke with them all on Friday, I made the distinction between the playground (out there) and the library as a learning space (in here, where I was going through the rules/responsibilities). The Principal has reiterated that the library is my domain where I am delegated to set the rules/standards of behaviour.
We have clarified with our students that they are to respect copyright, so pirated games/video are unacceptable anywhere. I am sure in this first week (it's our last week of term) there will be further clarification/reminding happening. I'll wait to see how big the crowd gets at lunchtime- I don't want to restrict numbers, but at the same time I do want to preserve an acceptable.manageable environment (for reasons of safety/doable supervision, for starters). This week, I might have both my school assistants (I have 1.5 each day) on duty at lunchtime, so we are all three on deck (normally it's one plus me). I'm not sure what extra teacher support I may get at lunchtime, if any.
It's a learning curve. We'll see how we go, and look for a path forward that serves us all. Right now, that student excitement is a great opportunity in our classrooms, the challenge being to build on it and harness it to enhance their learning and thus their opportunities in life.
It's an adventure!
Cheers
Ruth
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