Chromebook: First Impression

I signed up as an accessibility tester for the new Google Chromebook.  I was really excited (probably more than I should be, honestly) to get an email yesterday saying that I'd been accepted into the program.  And for those reading this blog for the first time, I'm excited for a number of reasons: I'm a special education teacher for students with autism, and also teach a self-contained history class, and assist in a team taught (special education/regular education pair teaching) history class.  I also believe in using technology in my classroom, and this gives us another tool to try!  At the very least, we can use it for some of the web creation that we do, like Animoto and Blogging (we use edublogs, because its easier for me to keep track of what the students are doing).  I'm also looking forward to trying out the Read & Write extension for Google Drive since we use RWG in our school district for accessibility.

OK...  back to the first impression...

The machine arrived this afternoon, which was really a surprise because I only received a ship notice 3 hours before FedEx showed up at my door!  Good thing I was home, because it needed to be signed for and I didn't relish a drive out to the nearest FedEx overnight ship terminal (Alexandria, VA!).

The cat was, of course, very interested in the box.  He loves technology, and remains a die-hard iPad fan because it responds to his paws as well as my hands.  

Once I opened the box, the directions were right there for me to find...  Except they were in Braille!  A friend helped me find this: Braille Translator site once I connected the Chromebook to the Internet.

Good thing I found English and German directions right under it (and Spanish, French, along with several other languages!).  It turned out that I didn't need them though...

I took the machine out of the box and was very surprised at how light it was.  I actually think its lighter than my iPad with its protective case.  Its certainly lighter than my Sony Vaio S series (I love it, BTW) which weighs about 6 pounds with the add-on battery.  The downside is that the machine feels more fragile, and I'm a little worried about how it will hold up in my classroom.  Most of my students aren't unnecessarily rough with anything, and we often use my iPad without its protective case (I have to take the case off to hook the iPad to our interactive whiteboard; the dongle doesn't fit with the case on) to play group games or practice in my social skills class.  But, we have had a few accidents this year which have involved a broken digital camera and a dropped whiteboard stylus.

The Chromebook does not have a port that will allow me to hook it to the whiteboard in the classroom.

I tried out Chromevox, and was fairly pleased with it.  Mind now, I'm not blind, and I have no reading disability.  I'll have to ask some students to try out the feature and see if they also find it acceptable.  I am thinking they might not because it reads EVERYTHING, including hyphens and "end parenthesis".  However, I will leave it up to them to decide.  I don't think it will be too hard to get them to use it, because they generally like anything new and shiny.  

I have discovered that PowerPoint slides don't transfer as well to Google Drive, but I'll explore a bit more and see if that improves.

The battery life is advertised at 6 hours, which isn't bad for a laptop, although my Sony is 14 hours with the sheet battery, and 5-7 hours without depending on the settings.  The battery life may have something to do with the screen.  The screen resolution, frankly, was amazing.  It is REALLY sharp.  Again, sharper than my Sony. I didn't realize that the screen resolutions had advanced so much in the 2 years I'd owned my Sony.

I believe the Chromebook will fit in the old iPad zippercase I have, which is nice.  The only reason I don't bring my laptop to school with me more often is because I am not supposed to lift more than 15 pounds: the backpack with the laptop (6 pounds with the sheet battery, give or take a pound), plus the iPad and assorted  school supplies is over 15 pounds.  And the wheeled backpack I bought is a pain in the rear.  Yes, I bring the iPad to school with the laptop because in my team classes, one of my jobs is to make a set of notes for students who have trouble copying from the board.  I can stand in the classroom or move around with the iPad, and cannot do that with the laptop.  However, I can't access the school grading system (web based) or our IEP writing system on the iPad.  I will be testing those out; allegedly both work in Chrome because the district installed that on the desktop machines just after winter break.  

As a side note, I wasn't able to find a Skype client for the Chromebook, and I already know that the Red Cross web-based applications won't work in Chrome.  I've been told the latter by other Red Cross volunteers.  I'm hoping there is a Skype client, because I use that regularly for another group I volunteer with.

For now, this is enough...  

Fakebook Profiles

In the past, I have used a simple PowerPoint template to make a quasi-Facebook profile for a project with the Explorer Unit in my World History class. Its a decent project, but doesn't really require a lot from the students. This year, one of my students found a website that creates a Facebook Profile. The tool, called Fakebook, is part of the ClassTools.Net suite of online tools that are available for teachers. The website is ad supported, but does offer premium subscriptions (a bit pricey unless you truly think you'll use everything on-line... I cannot because we don't have that much computer access available). An additional drawback is that most of the tools on ClassTools are Flash, and so will not work on most mobile devices (even those that say they support flash often don't support much more than games or movies!). This year, not only did we complete profiles for Explorers, but my social skills class also created profiles for "paper bag people". Our paper bag people came from Trader Joe's grocery store bags, because the drawings on the bag are very unique and creative. The students can be very creative with these, and for my students with autism using a fake person was easier than having to research a historical character. Here are a few of the social skills projects, just click on "View Full Screen" to get the full page. We're having a bit of a motivational problem in getting things done in the World History class.

View Fullscreen | Create your own

View Fullscreen | Create your own

4G iTouches

In December, we received 2 4G iTouches from another Donor's Choose grant. I'm so grateful for the people that continue to provide funding to allow my students access to technology! This time, most of the donors were local people or non-profits, which is a huge leap forward in my mind; as much as I love my friends who donate money to my classroom, seeing that there are community foundations donating to us is just fantastic. Our thanks to the Piedmont Community Foundation, and the other donors (most of whom choose to remain anonymous, which fine!) for the new technology we have to use.
We had also achieved open-access filtered wifi in our classroom provided by the school district for awhile... About 6 weeks. And then the district shut it down because people were using it to stream video which caused the system to crash. The administrative offices decided to limit access to the open filtered wifi system to outside of school hours. Of course, I don't know all of the decision making that went into the decision making, but it seems that if the issue were students & teachers streaming video, you could block it. You could have principals tell staff that this is not an appropriate use of the system.
It just seems counterproductive given budget issues not allowing for purchases of technology, and district policies that do not allow grant-purchased items (items that belong to the school only, and not to the district) to be on the network which prevents Internet access. In this day and age, with so many things depending on the cloud (some of which are FREE), it'd be nice to be able to use these tools with my students. Despite the income level, most of my students have a cell phone that can use apps, and are either Droid or iOS (more iTouches than iPhones), which have options to make reading & writing easier for my students.

Donor's Choose

Right around the time of semester exams, I was notified that my Donor's Choose grant was fully funded! For those who aren't familiar, Donor's Choose is a website that allows teachers to post ideas for projects they would like to do in their classroom, but for which they do not have funding. It was started by a New York City Public School teacher and initially was only open to teachers from that district. In the years since, it has grown, and been recognized as a great resource for teachers. It is really designed for the teachers in moderate or high poverty schools to try and get materials they need that can't be provided by their school or school district for whatever reason.
In September, when I started my new position teaching students with autism spectrum disorders (those who are in the academic program), I realized that my classroom probably wasn't as friendly as we would like. It was VERY bright due to the fluorescent lighting with the white cinder block walls, and a white linoleum floor. It also had no windows, which meant the room was very dark if we turned off the lights so the students could see our interactive whiteboard. The size of the room meant there really wasn't anywhere for the students to go to cool down if they needed. I decided to ask for some lamps, lightbulbs and a carpet. With the help of some friends, and some people that I've never met, and probably never will meet, we now have ALL of these items... plus the district found funding for an exercise ball, some weighted aromatherapy animals, a weighted lap pad, several different kinds of stress balls, and some curriculum materials.
We're still kind of hoping to find a loveseat or small couch to put back there, and I'll likely have to buy more of the aromatherapy animals because even my students with "just a learning disability" want to use them!