Varying technology in the Junior Class

Junior class students use a variety of technology to enhance their learning and to suit the specific learning needs of individuals.  

Pre- Primary students use iPads to practice letter formations.

 Year One students occasionally use head phones to block out background noise and assist with concentration for independent work.  This low technology assists all students, but more specifically, those students who may have difficulties with noise that is present in a composite class.

21st Century Fluencies Project

Worked with Miss Coates today to plan an integrated learning program for Term 2 incorporating 21st Century Learning Fluencies. The project design will incorporate higher order thinking skills, especially critical and creative processes, and will integrate through a range of Learning Areas using a range of technologies.  Thanks to Lee Crockett,  of 21st Century Learning Projects, for his guidance through this process today.  Big plans for the Senior class in Term Two.  Watch this space!

Year 4 students using Chromes to collaborate on an Inquiry History Project.

Introduction to an article about our school Chromebook journey from Lee Swift at the Catholic Education Office.

Setting up GAFE and Chromebooks

FEBRUARY 27, 2014 BY LEE S·0 COMMENT

HP Chromebook 11

The team and I (@BradFord_Cathed, @gper56, @carolinemullins & me: @lee_swift) are helping a country Western Australian school (Sacred Heart Catholic School Goomalling –http://www.shcsgoom.wa.edu.au) set up their new HP Chromebook 11′s and Google Apps for Education.
The school currently has iPads and Windows desktops but their Principal (Therese Hussy – @tmhussey) was very keen to trail the new kid on the block and has purchased 20 Chromebooks.
They will be used as shared devices, mixed throughout the whole school.

The school recently refurnished their library space to include breakout couches, and this has been adopted into each classroom as well. There science area has just had a 70″ Sharp LED TV installed above the whiteboard and with the attached Apple TV students and teachers are enjoying the un-thethered freedom!

Back to why we all went out:

Therese had already registered for GAFE and verified the device licenses for the 20 Chromebooks, so on arrival we jumped straight onto the GAFE interface and started uploading users. While you can add users individually if you have a system that holds user data (Maze, Synergetic or you can even sync Active Directory) you can upload users in bulk.

Chromebooks journal from Miss Coates - Senior Class Teacher.

We are creating alternative events and endings for fairy tales.

We went through the structure of a simple narrative on the board and studied an alternative fairy tale example. Now the students are working in pairs to write three events and an ending for a fairy tale that has taken a twist. They have all shared their docs with me and I am editing and commenting from my desk straight onto their work. I can see spelling and grammatical errors as well as students who are not working. I have access to all the student's work - regardless of whether they are working at tables, on couches or in the breakout corners around the room.

The Admin Jobs ...

Mrs Even has been busy this morning in the office setting up the security for our new Chromebooks.  She just loves labelling all those bags, chargers and Chromebooks to make sure they are all kept safe and sound at school. 

Chromebooks Introduced in the Senior Class

Week One of our journey and the Chromebooks are in the eager hands of the Year Six and Seven students and their teachers. The students are learning how to create documents using Google Docs and share these with their teachers.  It took the children all of five minutes to sort this out and they are now keen to complete work, send it to their teachers for editing and receive the work back edited and commented on. Added bonus - the documents emailed from the students'  school Gmail accounts can be viewed through the teacher accounts, notified to them via cathednet, and viewed from any device they are working on.  Such a user friendly and simple process!