Friday, March 25, 2011

1:1 Laptop Luck!

Today Mrs. Yollis' class was quite fortunate. The fifth grade class had Colonial Days! Why was that fortunate for Mrs. Yollis and her students?

They got to use the fourth/fifth grade 1:1 laptop cart! 


Here is how we used them:

In the morning, everyone composed a quality comment or two. Check out the funny conversations going on in the Animals, Announce Your Adaptation post!  The humpback whale, the spitting cobra, the gorilla, and the mountain goat were talking to one another! Hilarious!



Later, we logged into iXL to practice adding and subtracting fractions!







Some people went into Kerpoof and created fractional images!

By Grayson

By Adia, Hannah, and Grace


By Iman

By Jaden and Tucker

By Aaron and Linsday

By Ryan and Finn



After recharging our batteries by eating lunch and plugging in the laptops to recharge their batteries, we enjoyed more computer time after lunch!

We researched facts about places from our Post Card Project.
Seattle, Washington


Yorkshire Dales, England

Puffin facts for Scotland

It was very hard to find some of the rural places in our atlas!

Finally, those who participated in Fun Friday wanted to use the laptops again!


:-)     :-)     :-)     :-)     :-)

What are your thoughts about the 1:1 laptop experience?

What useful sites or applications could we use if we can get them again? 

If you have a 1:1 program, please lend us some advice!

:-)

11 comments:

  1. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

    Dear Mrs. Yollis,

    I think that the 1:1 laptop experience was wonderful! I loved it!

    My favorite part of the laptops was that we got to comment and do Kerpoof!

    If we get them again, I think that a useful application would be Microsoft Word because we can use it for our Step-up-to-Writing program. Maybe next time we can look up for a site that can help us with our math, language arts, or grammar like what iXL does.

    My mom had a brilliant idea and said that the fifth graders are having Outdoor Ed next week, so maybe they can lend the laptops for the whole entire week to us.

    I have a question for you.

    What does 1:1 mean?

    Your student,
    Adia

    :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ Adia,

    Thanks so much for a thoughtful comment! Terrific thinking and I like your ideas.

    Yes, we should definitely open up Word and use it. In fact, we could download our "Admire" paragraphs from our AlphaSmarts! Then, we could fix them up, choose a font size, and print them!

    I love your mom's idea too! We will absolutely make use of that time!

    Maybe someone will suggest some other language/grammar sites for us here in the comment section. I hope so!

    You asked what 1:1 means. (Asking for more information shows me you are a real thinker!)

    1:1 is a ratio (ray•she•oh). A ratio describes the relationship of two numbers. You would say the ratio like this: one to one. It means that one student gets one laptop. A 2:1 ratio would mean two students share one laptop. Right now in our room, we have a 23:1 ratio! Not a good ratio! :-(

    Thanks, again, for a fabulous comment!

    Your proud teacher,
    Mrs. Y♥llis

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Mrs. Yollis and class,

    The 1:1 laptop experience was great for me. After school when I saw my mom, I told her about it right away. I told my mom we got to have our own laptops today.

    I appreciated the experience because as a class this is a rare opportunity. However, Mr. Salish, 2KM and 2KJ classes are fortunate to have laptops every day.

    I think Microsoft Word would be a useful application. In fact, I’m using it now to proof my comment.

    No I don’t have a 1:1 program but if our class did have one, it would be an amazing opportunity.

    From, Finn

    ReplyDelete
  4. @ Finn,

    Wow! What a well-written comment! I ♥ how you used Word to compose your quality comment! That is a fantastic method. It has a built-in spelling and grammar check tool which helps a writer proofread!

    Adia's mom mentioned that the fifth graders will be at Outdoor Education soon, and we should be able to get the laptops again! We'll have to get some ideas together for our laptop time!

    Your proud teacher,
    Mrs. Y♥llis

    ReplyDelete
  5. As always your post is very engaging. The children get into things so quickly, as they always have ... "open to learning", is a phrase I like.
    So after having been a bit jealous about the quality of your kit (Apple Macs!). I then saw a postcard we had sent you from The Dales and there on the screen were the Dales. Today is sunny and they look beautiful.
    Did you give the laptops back to the older children?
    What type of equipment do you have available for your everyday classes?
    What is the children's favourite curriculum area that does NOT involve ICT?

    We salute your 40,000 visitors and as for your flag collection ... fabulous. We just picked up New Jersey and that caused quite a fuss at my breakfast table.

    Mr E
    Hawes

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Mrs. Yollis,

    I think having computers on our desk is really cool.I wish we could borrow them for the whole school year.

    I hope next time our ratio is 23:23.

    From,
    Aaron

    ReplyDelete
  7. @ Mrs Yollis and class, :razz:

    The photo's of you guys working on the lap-tops were amazing. That looks fun.
    Did everyone like it?
    What did you like about it?

    Warm wishes,
    Jordi :megreen:

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dear Mrs. Yollis and third graders,

    Thanks for sharing how you are using your ICT skills to further your learning. This is a wonderful example of how technology can be integrated in meaningful ways. It is something that we are striving towards in our classes. Thanks for setting such a fabulous example! I thought we could share two websites that you might find interesting on your next 1:1 day. The first is http://signedstories.com/ and the second is http://www.360cities.net/ . Signed Stories features multi-leveled books with combinations of pictures, text, and audio. The unique feature of this website is an adult showing the sign language that accompanies the text. We stumbled upon 360 Cities while exploring Google Earth. This tool has been a fun way to have a look around areas where our Quad-Blog Buddies live. Keep up the great work, third graders!

    Gratefully,
    Mrs. Moore
    Techie Kids
    Michigan, USA

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dear Mrs. Yollis and class,

    Wow that looks like so much fun that you got to use 1:1 laptops. I wish I could have been there.

    I think you should use Microsoft Word and compose a story.

    I wish we could have the laptops for a whole week just like Mr. Salsichs class.

    From,
    ♥Miriam♥

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dear Mrs. Yollis' Class,

    I can tell you loved the 1:1 laptop experience! We are fortunate in our classroom to sign out trunks from our library. In each trunk is ten laptops. There are four trunks for the whole school.

    I must confess, the 49'ers sign them out A LOT!

    I love using Edmodo with our laptops. Edmodo is like a Facebook program, except for elementary school. The kids can sign into Edmodo and compete assignments. It's sort of like a back channel online classroom. No one can see the comments except us, the 49'ers. It's very cool. A little more relaxed than a blog.

    I love the fractions you shared on Kerpoof. I'm going to add that to our math this week. We just began our fraction unit.

    Thanks for always posting great ideas!

    Mrs. Kistler

    ReplyDelete
  11. ***********************************

    Dear Mrs.Yollis,

    I think using the labtops was a great experience!

    My favorite part of the labtop is that we got to comment and do IXL.

    If we ever have them again, I think it would be useful for IXL and Microsoft Word.

    1. I think we should do IXL, because we learn stuff faster, for example I learned division faster.

    2. We could use Microsoft Word for step up to writing.

    From,
    Nic*las
    ***********************************

    ReplyDelete

* * *
Getting feedback is important to our writers. Let us know what you liked or what you learned.

Steps to Comment:

1. Write your comment in the box below. Be sure that you have proofread it for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Students should have a parent check it!

2. Choose an identity. (If you have a gmail account, use it. If not, choose name/url. You can leave the url blank if you do not have a blog.)

3. Click "Publish your Comment". You may preview your comment before publishing if you'd like.


Important: All comments MUST be approved by me.
:-) Mrs. Yollis