GIS Newsletter - Glenwood Intermediate School

Teaching and Learning with Chromebooks
Glenwood Intermediate School’s new tool to facilitate learning
This spring, 10 classrooms are
piloting the use of Chromebooks,
which are powered
by the Google Chrome web
browser and come preloaded
from the Internet cloud with
Google applications. “The
school originally piloted, but
on a much smaller scale, the
‘Bring Your Own Device’ program
last year in two of our
classrooms, using whatever
devices students brought in,”
says GIS Principal, Dan Lund.
“The problem with that, we
discovered, was that learning
actually slowed due to
the inequity in devices.” At
the end of 2012, the price
of Chromebooks dropped
nearly in half. “It was at that
point we researched more
closely all that Chromebooks
could offer instructionally,
and any limitations as well.
We talked with neighboring
school district teachers
and their students for their
feedback, and felt that this
was the direction we should
be heading.”
Grant money, and a
little luck
The Ball-Chatham Educational
Foundation awarded
$21,000 to GIS for the purchase
of Chromebooks last
November. (Chromebooks
cost $249 each.) The district’s
IT staff proceeded to place
the order in December, but
was informed by the provider
that the Chromebooks were
on backorder until February
2013. So, to make things
right, they shipped an equal
number of new Chromebooks
(with slightly different
features, but the same ones
GIS Teacher, Tim Niemeyer, explains his lesson using Chromebooks
our teachers use) and told
our district that they are
ours to keep, even when our
first order arrives in February.
Two for the price of one!
That meant that 10 classrooms
could be using them
instead of just five. The plan
is to outfit the final three
classrooms next school year
with Chromebooks, and also
move 120 Chromebooks up
to the sixth grade to be used
in science and social studies
classes.
How using Chromebooks
enhances
learning
Teachers can create
templates using apps so they
can share documents with
students and the students
can then manipulate those
documents. They can log into
their computers and provide
real time feedback on students’
papers as they write
them.
Teachers can also provide
virtual comments within
Google Documents and
Google Drive. That cloud
technology has an added
advantage — accessibility.
Students simply log onto
their Google Drive account
from any computer with an
Internet connection. School
programming is mindful
of the disparity between
children who have and those
who do not have a computer
in the home. All Internetbased
activities are done in
school so that no student is
at a disadvantage.
Chad Kent, Ball-Chatham’s
Director of Technology
notes that Chromebooks
are durable and can be used
again next year or can be
shared from class to class as
students log in via the cloud.
The plan is for the Chromebooks
to be used for several
years to come.
“This technology will
help with online testing in
2014-15 with common core
standards,” Kent said. “For
example, fifth-graders will
have to compose writing in
one sitting at a computer for
that writing standard, so the
students need to be familiar
with not only grammar, spelling
and sentence structure
but also with keyboarding.
They’ll be testing online at
desks instead of labs.”
Unlike traditional personcontinued,
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