Project 24: Getting off to a good start with Chrometime culture
I’ve just come back from a study trip to the States to see blended learning in action (see Rocketship and Arthur Ashe). One of the many things I learned was that classroom culture around the computers is everything and from tight routines comes good culture. So before doing much maths or blended learning, I decided to spend 2 lessons just dealing with Chromebook routines and classroom transitions.
Together with my headteacher, we developed some systems for the way pupils would take out and put away the Chromebooks and the way teachers would get pupils’ attention during the lesson. The images below show how each slot in the trolley has two names against it so that the same devices (also named) go back in the same slots. While you can see where the Chromebook Shuttle Runners place the computers in piles of four on top of the trolley, you can’t see that they’re sitting on a little sign that says ‘Place me here’ (this template can be downloaded in the Resources section below).
The short video on the right shows the Trolley Monitors and Shuttle Runners in action.
Day 1
- Chromebook Trolley Monitors and Shuttle Runners practised taking out and distributing the Chromebooks.
- Pupils ‘enrolled’ their own Chromebooks on the school wifi network without difficulty.
- We spent some practising the clap to silence. We made a competition out of it and the drill got slicker and slicker. That’s going to come in handy. (See video below.)
- Pupils explored their computers and read a welcome email I’d sent them.
Day 2
- More chances to practise the taking out/putting away procedures and clapping to silence.
- Logged in to a couple of maths websites that I’ve signed them up to (MangaHigh and ixl). Incidentally, I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure their usernames and passwords are the same for Google, MangaHigh and ixl – lots of playing around with csv files.
Resources
‘Place Chromebooks here’ template
