Chromebook Update: This-thing-needs-a-name

With a one-to-one computer initiative, a blended learning plan in the oven* and a team of people involved from KSA, ARK and Google, the scale of things has gone from one-man-and-a-class to this-thing-needs-a-name level.

I’m a big fan of word association games – probably too many Saturday mornings watching Mallet’s Mallet or too many Saturday afternoons code-naming my every move as an Operation – so when it comes to naming things I go for something cryptic by playing around with synonyms, acronyms and Latin derivations.

On the back of an envelope I jotted down some possible nicknames for our Chromebook initiative…

• Operation Blended Learning – too obvious
• Inventum Intertextatum – “Interwoven Discovery”
• B.ursting with L.earning EN.gineered D.evices – trying too hard

In the end, I found inspiration in chemistry. Chromebook…chrome…chromium. Chromium is an element in the periodic table and its atomic number is 24. Since 24 is also the number of hours in a day, I thought it gave the sense that our Chromebooks and blended learning pilot would lead to learning around the clock.

So we’ve called it Project 24.

What actually is Project 24?
Project 24 is a deep trial of blended learning. Three classes of year 7s stand to benefit over the course of the school year.

Pupils will have a Chromebook each and we will measure the impact on maths progress and attainment of two different models – ‘flipped classroom’ and ‘flex’.

* Credit to Courtney Hogben, Project 24’s Project Leader.