Excitement in the Mac Book Air!

Today is the day that many in our middle school have been looking forward to for a long time, I know I have!  Today we are rolling out our 1:1 initiative with Mac Book Airs for every student in the building!  The high school had their rollout last week, so that means in grades 7-12 every student will have a Mac Book Air!

Needless to say, I am pretty excited about the way our school is going to run from here on out!  Don't get me wrong, I am sure there is going to be a huge learning curve, and many will struggle to really USE the technology to help improve instruction.  That is why I have decided to try and blog about how the rollout goes from day 1 until further notice.  I by no means will have the time or desire to blog each and every day, but I hope to have a "running record" of some of the ups and downs of rolling out lap tops for every student.  I hope for this to help me process new ways of running my classroom, but also help others who will be doing similar rollouts in the future.

Today, I was not really involved in the handing out of the computers, but from what I have heard it is going really well.  Many staff and administrators worked countless hours setting up a 5 step process that the students walked through.  This whole process was handled through our Social Studies department, who graciously gave up a day of instruction to get these computers into our students hands.  Below is a look at the steps student went through to get the computers, well done everyone involved!

Students checked in with office staff

Students were given pre-assigned Mac Book Air 

Students then unpacked box and made sure logging in worked on the new machine

Students then stored empty boxes in specific locations

Finally students were given cases to protect the computer

Tomorrow is the big day, students will be using the computers in class!  I know I have already set up and planned a formative assessment using the computers.  A great way to gauge where your students are and get instant feedback, which in turn will help to better drive the instruction taking place!

Really excited for what is to come, but bracing for the many speed bumps that we will no doubt face along the way!  Like our assistant superintendent said at a meeting, when we have issues that arise, just remember, those issues are from 500 + computers being in our students hands!  What a great problem to have to deal with!  I could not agree more!!!

I will continue to post as the next few days a weeks go by with how we are doing!  Please comment with questions or advice, would love to hear from you!