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...  

Tech Sweatin'

OK... I promise this is my absolute LAST IRL Quest for the day... 

Its just that I started these in August, never got a chance to finish, and had most of the "bits and pieces" already, so it was easy to blog them.

Well, except this one.  This is a new one...  I just discovered Daily Burn in January when I was looking for a new food tracker and exercise tracker.  I'm way more motivated to workout if I can post it, or earn points for it or ... or ...  I really want to get a Jawbone Up tracker that will track sleep, weight, calories, etc.  I want the Up! because its currently the only waterproof tracker available on the market.  Despite all the noise about swimming being a fantastic form of exercise that anybody can do, none of the weight/fitness trackers are available for those that swim. 

I guess that makes me very much like my students and their video games (check back to see if I think this is a good thing...)

Fill in the Blank with Pixlr

Something Soft:

Something Red:

City Walk with Pixlr

This for the I Love to be IRL (In Real Life)! series of quests on 3D Game Lab. I used some pictures from a trip to Seattle. I love Seattle; I think along with Boston, Seattle is probably my favorite city in the United States. I can't say they are my favorite cities in North America because I've only been to Winnipeg (and that for a conference with precious little time for exploration)as other cities in North American but not within the United States. Of course, I'll readily admit that the two cities could be my favorites because they are among the few cities that I've traveled to for reasons outside of my volunteer work with Red Cross Disaster Services. There is something about seeing cities during disasters that tends to make them "not favorite", even if the people living and recovering from the disaster are amazing. Picture #1: I took this from the hotel room I stayed at during the Microsoft Innovative Teacher conference. Pixlr made it VERY easy to get rid of the one part of the picture I hated, which was the reflection from the plate glass window. I'm so glad I was able to get rid of it, because it is a gorgeous photo.

Picture #2: This picture was taken from the base of the Space Needle (if that wasn't obvious already!). I'm terribly scared of heights, which has ruined several opportunities for awesome picture taking, including from the top of the Berlin TV Tower and the St. Louis Arch (although this was achieved thanks to the students who were with me on that trip who grabbed my camera when it was clear that I was only up there because I felt it was my duty to make sure they weren't killed while that far up in the air!).

Picture #3: This was supposed to be a good photo, but wound up misaligned and far too orange. Pixlr allowed me to rotate it, put a dark frame around it, and tone down the orange... now its a great example of "good bye" and "thank-you" in different languages!

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

3D Game Lab: IRL Quest-Let's Make A Meal

I made a turkey breast in my slow cooker for the Cooking 1 & 2 Quests. I then added risotto, frozen chopped broccoli, cream of corn soup and some Parmesan cheese to turn it into turkey, broccoli and rice "casserole". Right now I'm only allowed to eat pureed or liquid foods because of some health issues, so I'm afraid the picture isn't very appetizing...

This was quite good, one of the better meals I've made since I started the puree/liquid diet at the advice of the dietician I see. I wouldn't make this if you don't like Parmesan cheese or turkey. I love broccoli, but was disappointed that was it was all chopped together, I couldn't taste or crunch it. Oh well.

3D Game Lab: IRL Quest-Cooking 2

I had already been to the store for the necessary ingredients and started cooking before I came back to this quest... so I took the picture in the kitchen.

If you look closely, you may see the tip of a tail, which is the kitten being on the counters where he is NOT supposed to be.

The meal would be savvy saver: Although the ingredients were expensive since I buy mostly organic and unprocessed items, the turkey breast will make at least 4 meals. Tonight is turkey & rice. Tomorrow is cream of turkey corn rice soup with broccoli. Tuesday is turkey salad for lunch or leftover soup, with turkey salad for dinner.

And easy clean up, too!