Chromebooks arrive, orientation is done....

Today the Chromebook orientation happened with all four classes. The IT Department specialist visited from the School Board Office to walk the students through the process of logging into the network then signing onto Chrome. The various classes addressed the orientation in different ways.

After the business of getting onto the network and into their work was accomplished, first period [class of students new to this research course] spent all their time playing with background images and avatars and basically playing with the look of their Chrome profile. When they were told the students who come after them on the machines may change the background, they were a little bummed but not enough to stop experimenting with uploaded images.

Using the Chromebook webcam as a tool.

Second period [the research course veterans] immediately began to use the Chrome Books as a tool. One student doing a project about chickens and eggs had made a stuffed chicken as part of presentation showing how chickens are crammed into a battery cage. With the help of her colleagues, she shot a picture of the chicken with the Chrome Book webcam and sent it directly to her blog. We posed it with proper lighting and staging -- it looks like a studio photograph.

The students explored settings and options. Two discovered they had access to YouTube, an application we are not supposed to access, and a discovery I was thrilled with because that meant the YouTube videos on our class Google Site would be accessible. But, as is the case, someone spilled the beans to IT as though it was a new trick he learned how to do...which of course IT snapped to immediately. Other students kept giving the student the evil eye saying in meaningful ways. "NO, you are mistaken as usual!"  No middle schoo student likes to be shut down, so he fought back proving that yes, YouTube exists! The veterans took the opportunity to go to Google Site for the class and watch the tutorials for the course.

Later in the day there was no YouTube.

Tomorrow will be their first day using the Chrome Books for their work. It will be interesting to find out what their perception of how learning and research has changed.