Sunday, August 18, 2013

1:1 Journey: Post #1 Starting the School Year

This 2013-14 school year our high school goes 1:1.  Teachers have the 13.3" MacBook Air while students have the 11" MacBook Air.  Teachers had the opportunity to receive their laptops in July so that they had time to acclimate themselves to the new laptops.  Students will receive laptops the first week of September.  This means the first few weeks of school students do not have laptops.  Quite frankly, I'm happy with this roll out as it gives me time to set up my class on-line as well as time to wrap my mind around this new technology.

The skies the limit when it comes to teaching 1:1! That being said,  I realize I can not do it all in the first year. Instead I have picked 3 areas to focus on this year:
  1. reduce paper copies by transitioning to paperless docs
  2. use a blog to connect with students via posting lessons, Google Docs and online learning resources
  3. provide authentic online learning experiences...for my content (Spanish) this means enhancing the 4 language domains (vocabulary, vocabulary control, communication strategies, cultural awareness)...starting small with at least one online experience per unit
If I expect my students to blend their learning with online and face to face interactions then I must model those same expectations from day one of school.  Here is what I did:
  • Created our class blog "Spanish Flipped4u" using Blogger & Projected the blog daily to feature anticipatory sets, lessons at a glance, learning websites and docs in Google Drive 

These are my first steps in making 1:1 a meaningful learning experience for my students.  Stay tuned for more posts to see how I meet my three 1:1 goals throughout this school year.