Back to School

This past Thursday was the first day of school, and the first day of my second year teaching with 1:1 Chromebooks. I was excited to meet my new students and right away introduced myself as their "geeky, tech-obsessed" teacher and to show them around their new classroom because I have recently acquired a SMART Kapp board and brand new, top of the line SMART Board 6065 (interactive flat panel), so my classroom looks beautiful and super high-tech. I'm really proud of this - I've worked hard to get these things and couldn't be more excited to use these new tools in my classroom.

The first day of school was busy and filled with introductions and paperwork, so there wasn't really time to get out Chromebooks and play, but my students' eyes LIT UP when I told them that I had no problem with them using their cell phones and devices as tools to help their learning! They've never been told this before, but I wanted them to know right away that I'm pro-technology, as long as it's being used appropriately. I think it set a good tone.

The second day we started right off with Chromebooks and after configuring settings and bookmarking some pages, I gave them their first assignment: a fun geography/math/Google search challenge I created in Google Earth Tour Builder. Have you used Tour Builder? If not, it's a fantastic tool from Google Geo that allows you to create a tour made up of stop anywhere in the world. You can add text and photos to each stop for students. The applications for this are endless, but for this first introductory activity, I took students on a tour of world landmarks and asked a question they'd have to answer correctly before being able to go on to the next stop (answers were recorded in a linked Google Form with data validation). Check out my activity here - and even play it yourself! The teachers I shared it with had fun doing it, too! My students ended the day excited about sixth grade and using technology, and I consider that a successful first week of school.