Principal Connections

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that Chromebooks are here to stay. This morning I caught an article by Eric Sheninger on Twitter, and he outlines  6 reasons why Chromebooks have staying power. It's short, to the point and makes loads of sense. At my school, we received three separate shipments of Chromebooks, courtesy of the school board but we decided to put them into the hands of teachers first. We wanted teachers to "muck around" so that they would be more encouraged to integrate the technology into their curriculum. We didn't want access to the be road block. Teachers have been given a Chromebook for the year. The last Tuesday of each month at my school is Tech Tuesday and I plan to use Chromebooks exclusively. Now that our Board has gone Google, I also want to show teachers that the need to use a desktop computer and/or a tradition laptop has gone by the wayside. The strategy, simply put: put it in their hands and model, model, ...

Chromebooks are all the rage at the moment. I  have one. I like it. It does what I need it to do. It fits in my purse. At my school, many seem to feel that now that they have access to a free device, they are "21st century teachers". It's sad really, because like all other trends in education, pedagogy always seems to fall by the wayside. Our school board has invested huge financial resources in devices because certain people feel that if we want teachers to integrate technology, there can't be any road blocks to access. Each school was given a class set of Chromebooks for teachers to use. I think the thought process behind it was that as long as the Board was providing access to the technology, teachers would be more inclined to use it. Instead, I have had requests for certain software to be loaded onto the device so that marks can be done at home. Teachers want the Microsoft Office applications loaded, not understanding (and clearly missing the point entirely) that ...