Whole+Group+with+Technology

====Planning the procedures you will follow when using technology with your entire class sets the tone and prevents chaos and frustration. We generally remember to create an outline of the steps in a lesson, but what about the steps you will follow to pass out and take up laptops from the mobile labs? How will you handle it if some of your students are unable to log onto the server to save their work? Think about the classroom management challenges you have in a traditional lesson, and realize that unless you are proactive and plan to address those while the technology is in use, they may be amplified rather than eliminated. Planning procedures, communicating them to your students, and consistently following them will set the stage for success every time you use technology with your students. ====

Suggested Procedures for taking your students to a Fixed Lab or using a Mobile Lab:
 1. Check out the lab before you go or bring it to your room! This means reserving the space or equipment at the time you need it and making sure that you know what kind of machines and software is available. If you possibly can, work through everything you will ask your students to do on one of the lab computers to be certain that everything will go just as you expect it to if your directions are carefully followed.

*Make notes of the steps you follow and use them as a guide as you instruct students.

 2. Plan how you will model the steps of the lesson. This may be in your classroom before you travel to the lab or get out computers with older students or it may be while using the lab a step or two at a time with the younger ones - but have a plan for projecting and explaining the process you expect students to follow.

*Think out loud! Express what you are doing using the vocabulary you want your students to use.

*Have older students take notes as you model so that they can work at their own pace.

 3. Instruct students beforehand about how to get help while using the lab. It may be that you will have them raise their hand, but remember that when using technology students often want solutions to be offered NOW! Consider using some sort of visual clue to let you know when a student needs your help. Ideas include colored plastic cups at each station (They can be stacked to signal status - like green for "things are fine." yellow for "in need of help on the content of the assignment or activity," and red for "in need of computer help." with their current status on top and showing.) or slips of colored paper that can be placed wherever you can most easily see them to indicate status.

*Make sure that students understand your procedures, rules and expectations, and the Acceptable Use Policy and the consequences for not following them.

*Give all students a chance to use technology. Students LOVE technology and will often behave better than usual in order to participate.

 4. Have a procedure in place for events such as stumbling upon inappropriate content, etc.

Every student should know what to do when the unexpected happens.

Example: Close the window and raise your hand. When the teacher comes to you, explain exactly what you were searching for and wait for further instruction. There is no need to describe what you stumbled upon.

*Be prepared to help the student refine search terms and find appropriate sites.

 5. Line students up as you want them to sit in the lab or assign stations before moving to the lab. (Fixed) Having checked out the lab, you will know if there is a machine you need to "skip" assigning. While you can move some students around if you need to after you get there, having them walk to their assigned station initially sure beats having them crowded around you waiting for a station assignment or talking to each other (socializing) rather than listening to you as you try to assign stations on the spot.

 *Remember, if students cannot work together or near each other in your room, they are not likely to be able to do so productively in the computer lab either!

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Pass out computers or have students pick them up from the mobile lab in an organized manner. (Mobile) For younger students, you will probably want to pass out computers or have them come to you at the cart to get them. Older students can go and get the computer out of the cart, but either way, an entire class cannot be gathered around the carts with computers in hand and it be an orderly scene that is safe for computer care. Clearly communicate the procedure, including the path students should follow to and from the cart and your expectation that the computer will be held firmly with both hands while in transit. You may want to consider no more than 5 students on a side of a cart at a time

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Think about traffic flow. Minimize the need to pass each other in close proximity.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">*If you will be working in groups, make group assignments and seating arrangements before distributing the computers. Moving desks with computers on them is a really bad idea. Also, remember that the ability to walk around the room without bumping desks is imperative when there are laptops on every desk!

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 6. Position yourself so that you can easily see what students are doing as they work (that means the computer screens) and model as necessary. You will need to be on your feet, moving around the room to offer assistance as needed, back to your station for modeling and teaching throughout the lesson. Always be aware of where you are in the room and what you can and cannot see and do from there. Adjust as necessary to maximize your ability to supervise!

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Be proactive in monitoring for academic, technical, and behavioral problems by moving around the lab as much as possible to avoid problems rather than having to solve problems.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *For those with Model Classrooms, Interwrite Pads are offered as a tool to free teachers from the teaching station.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 7. Plan for the length of the lesson or activity. Is it a long or a short lesson?

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Sometimes, when using technology, less is more. Students need time to work and finish. Using technology often takes longer and all students will not work at the same pace, nor will they require the same amount or type of help. For long lessons and activities, set some benchmarks to meet along the way to keep students focused and on task and to avoid having them wait until the last minute to get started. Give them objectives to meet as their work progresses.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Divide the work into manageable parts and celebrate the successful completion of each step with your students.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Have a planned procedure for those who do not finish as soon as others to have an opportunity to finish.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Have a planned procedure for what those who finish before others should do once they have completed their work.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 8. Provide rubrics, checklists, and/or samples to help students understand what you are asking them to do. Seeing it helps. If a student or group of students is having success, allow them to help those who are struggling.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Let students show their talents! Learn from them yourself and allow other students to learn from them.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 9. Plan for the end of the lesson.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Will your students print their work? If so, make sure that what they are printing has the student's name on it. It is impossible to identify a student's typing. :) Consider having students print their work by row or section of the room rather than telling all students to print at once.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Where will students save their work? Middle and High School teachers it is expected and imperative that your students are saving to the server, make sure they are able to log on and understand how to do so. Providing printed step by step instructions for those who need them is always a good idea. Elementary teachers save in folders mentioned earlier or you may use the server also, if using server make sure you have their sign-in information readily available.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *Saving student work only to a lab computer is always risky. It may be deleted or edited by someone else who uses the computer and the student cannot work on it from any other machine, so have a procedure for saving work in place and remind students how and where to save a few minutes before the end of their computer time so that work will not be lost.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 10. Have a procedure in place for logging off and/or shutting down computers. (Fixed) Model this, and have the class follow along with you to ensure that all students are logged off of the server or other resources and that all machines are shut down if it is the end of the day or that is how they are to be left.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> Have a procedure in place for logging off and/or shutting down computers and returning them to the cart. (Mobile) Once everyone has logged off and shut down the computers, have a procedure for placing the computers back into the cart in an organized manner. This allows you to account for all machines and quickly plug them back in for recharging.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 11. Plan to work around isolated technology problems. Do not be discouraged if a problem occurs that you don't know how to solve. Ask for help correcting the problem later or put in a work order to have it fixed before you or another teacher needs to use the machine again. Tape a copy of the work order to the machine so that others know about the problem before they begin a lesson using the lab.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> *If you understand how to save to the server or have a jump drive available, just save the student's work and switch machines.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"> 12. Have a back-up plan JUST IN CASE the network is down or the power goes out! While these things are rare, they do occasionally happen. Having a back-up plan may mean rotating tomorrow's lesson to today and using the lab tomorrow, or it may mean having students create a storyboard or doing other preparation for their project on paper.

<span style="color: #2a2513; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">*Prepare a plan, at least in your head, for the worst case scenario - a widespread technology issue.