Mrs. Koontz, a second grade teacher at Echo Lake Elementary, is participating in an awesome two week pilot study using a class set of Google Chromebooks. I went in last Friday afternoon and got her kids setup on their new devices. Mrs. Koontz’s students will be using the Chromebooks for the next two weeks and reporting back about all the pros and cons of these devices.
On Friday we taught the kids how to log on, how to set bookmarks in Google, how to add apps and even had them join Mrs. Koontz’s Google Classroom so she could collaborate easily with them over the next few weeks. Monday and Tuesday Mrs. Koontz worked out some of the kinks, helped the students add some apps and got familiar with the devices.
On Wednesday she invited me in for several hours to really get these devices implemented into their routine. I was so excited!! We started we a Nearpod activity! If you aren’t familiar with Nearpod let me catch you up! Nearpod is an interactive presentation and assessment tool that can be used to amazing effect in the classroom. The app’s concept is simple. A teacher can create presentations that can contain Quiz’s, Polls, Videos, Images, Drawing-Boards, Web Content and so on. I had tried this same Fraction Nearpod lesson with two second grade classes at Carver Elementary so I begged Mrs. Koontz to try it! She LOVED the program and immediately started searching for her own Nearpod lessons to try! The kids were amazed that I was controlling their Chromebooks from my laptop! Thanks Karen Hues for sharing this awesome Nearpod lesson with me!!
After our Nearpod activity we jumped over to Google Drive. The students partnered up, created a Google Slide presentation and shared it with each other! Mrs. Koontz and I showed the students how to access OneSearch so they could research using PebbleGo and Encyclopedia Britannica. The students thought it was so cool that they were on the same presentation as their partner and that when you partner added text or a picture it magically appeared on their computers! Oh the magic of Google Drive! Mrs. Koontz’s students are planning to continue these presentations this week! I can’t wait to go back in next week and see how much they’ve done!
Lastly, before I left we played a Kahoot! review game on Habitats. Kahoot is a collection of questions on specific topics. Created by teachers, students, business-people and social users, they are asked in real-time, to an unlimited number of “players”, creating a social, fun and game-like learning environment. Again Mrs. Koontz was hooked and immediately started adding Kahoots to her account so she could continue playing when I was gone!
If you think any of these three activities would be fun to try in your classroom sign up on my blog! I’d love to help you!! Stay tuned for another post about Mrs. Koontz’s Chromebook fun!!!
