This is a picture of the device we chose, the Lenovo Yoga S1, with an integrated digitized stylus. The Yoga functions as both a fully capable laptop, as well as a fully capable tablet with a touch screen. The stylus allows students to write or draw on the screen as they normally would on paper.
What Went Well
Prior to rolling out the devices in August of 2014, I was brought on as the Technology Integrationist in August of 2013, a full year ahead of roll out. During the 2013 school year, I spent a lot of time familiarizing the faculty with their Lenovos, having workshops 3 times a week for professional development, and demonstrating new apps or websites, or features to use in the classroom. Each week, I held the workshops at 3 different times, so that as many of the faculty could attend as possible, having morning, lunch-time, and after school sessions. The effort I got from the teachers was outstanding, many of them really wanted to learn how to use the devices as best they could in new and innovative ways. Throughout the year, a few I gave the teachers a few assignments to see how they could apply what they learned during the workshops. This professional development was ideal to get the teachers familiar with new technology and using innovation in the classroom.
When rolling out the devices in August, we set up 4 classrooms in which we could hand them out. We held 8 different sessions, spread over 3 days to allow for the maximum amount of devices to be distributed.
We had the students sign a responsible use policy and also gave them a copy of the US Learn21 Handbook, and had both the student and parents sign the handbook (the handbook can be found as a PDF file by following the responsible use policy link).
We set up a loaner program, so that if a student's Yoga was broken or needed repair, or they forgot it at home, they could check out a loaner. We rolled out over 300 Yogas, and thus we went with a 15% loaner pool.
We set up a Google Drive account for each student and teacher. We decided to use Google Drive as our platform, calling our folders for our teachers "Nests," and giving each student a folder or "Nest" for each class. The students can use this to turn in assignments and store projects, papers, or other media they need for classes. This has both worked well, and not so well depending on the class and/or student(s).
We had the students create a Microsoft account as well, so that they could link their Yoga to their Microsoft accounts and have access to Microsoft OneDrive, similar to Google Drive where they can save their information.
I also set up a Learn21 Manual to help students get familiar with their devices and troubleshoot issues.
Every Thursday we have "Tech Thursday," where we try to promote technology in the classroom. During the tutorial/advisory period, the teachers show a Tech Thursday video, which I pick out, and it has something to do with digital citizenship or something neat/interesting that has just been done with technology. The teachers also get to wear the Tech Thursday shirts we gave out and jeans. I think that this has really help promote Tech Thursday!
What Needed Improvement
Getting the students to update their Yoga software has been tedious. Not all of the students are as responsible as they should be about making sure the Yogas software is up-to-date. For the students that do this, the devices work very well, for those that have not, the device will have intermittent problems.
Training the students to use a flash drive or Google Drive to store information. I'm still seeing on a daily basis, students not save their information to either a flash drive or to Google Drive. We encourage them to save to their Nests because then it is on a secure file server.
As other things come up, both good and bad, I will keep y'all updated on them!
-Matthew Knauf
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