Mid May Pilot Snippets

Two schools had new pupils that had just started, the pupil's user accounts were created in less than a minute and there was no disruption or awkwardness for them not being able to join in the activities with their peers, they just got on with the tasks immediately. They joined in the collaborative docs and chats instantly. This is a really important factor for any new teacher / pupil in a school, they need user accounts and access to communication tools right away.

In the High School - The session where the new S1s were getting to grips with their new Chromebooks went well, all the Chromebooks booted up in less than 5 seconds, network connectivity was instant. After a recap of the 'acceptable use' work they had done previously they were shown how to log on, use gmail, collaborative docs, hangouts, change their password, profile pics and use the Chromebook camera. Again, having the hook up to an old projector with only VGA input was invaluable. A group of girls mastered all the settings very quickly and naturally and then helped the others who were still finding their way about. The quick bootup time, instant connectivity and simplicity of use was key to the success of the session.

In the Primaries - The P7 pupils demonstrated how they had each written their own comments to contribute to their end of year/primary school report. They each their own google doc shared only with their teacher who had pre-populated it with sentence stems and questions. The access to technology enabled them all (on their own) to draft, correct, and construct their comments, the teacher helped to provide feedback and suggest corrections to each of them individually and in real-time in their document. The pupils can't print directly from their Chromebooks but as the document was shared with their Teacher she was able to print via the school printer, ready to take home to their Parents and Carers.

The P7 Teacher fed back saying that this time of year for the P7s is often a tricky time for a class teacher, often the feeling of the school's activities have become a bit old hat, they feel they are too big for some of the normal routines, quite naturally their minds are preparing them for the move to 'big' school. Providing the 1-1 Chromebooks have 'significantly motivated and engaged' this group now who are using the tools to start the small journey across the road but big step to High School. Transition activities based on a Science project with the High School are underway.

The pilot school who launched first did so a couple of weeks before the second and third one. The observations from the Teacher in the first school there were that now the buzz had died down using the chromebooks for learning had become embedded, they instinctively are using the collaborative tools. It is 'making a difference', - she said.