Kinder Chromebook Camp

Some days you wonder if this is real life when you have a job like this: You get to work with amazing teachers, administrators, and STUDENTS! Today was one of those days where I could combine my passion for promoting technology fluency and being around Kindergartners.

The teachers at the Early Education Center and I planned a Kinder Chrome Camp to teach students the basics of using a Chromebook and Google Chrome. The learning goals were:

• Learn proper care and use of the Chromebook
• Use Clever Badge to log-in to the Chromebook (taking pictures)
• Practice using the trackpad (motor skills)
• Locate the shelf on the Chromebook
• Click to open an app on the shelf
• Keyboarding (Letter and number recognition)

At the beginning of the school year, each Kindergarten teacher added 5 Chromebooks to their classroom in addition to any desktop or iPads. We had many classrooms 1:1 with Chromebooks, and some of the Kindergarten teachers were interested in exploring the idea of 1:1 with Chromebooks. The goal of the Kinder Chrome Camp was to introduce students to using the Chromebooks for them to become familiar with basic steps such as logging on, typing on the keyboard, and using the trackpad. As the year progresses, the letter and number recognition will develop and these foundation tasks will be helpful as they move into the elementary schools where we are 1:1 Chromebooks.

We set up the Chromebook Camp where every 30 minutes for two days, teachers could rotate their classes through. There were 27 classes with on average of 20 students in each class we had to introduce these skills to. Thankfully I had the support and help of amazing paraprofessionals and classroom teachers to help with Clever badges, helping students who have not developed the number and letter recognition and motor skills. It was amazing to see the students use the Chromebooks. It was even funnier to see them react to not being able to touch the screen like they often do with tablets or phones as they do at home! It was a group effort, and one that will definitely lay an important foundation for these students for the development of their technology fluency.

The best part of the day were the students asking to come back to learn more about the Chromebooks, use the Chromebooks in the classrooms, and what other things they could learn about the Chromebooks. The better part, as a coach it enabled me to make the connection with any classroom teachers and illustrate the collaboration that can take place. It was an exciting endeavor that produced many positive results (including the sweetest smiles and hugs from the students).

Here are the resources I used to help teach an intro to the Chromebooks for Kindergarten. I believe this could be adapted for even 1st - 2nd grades as well depending on their prior use of Chromebooks.

• Kinder Chromebook Google Slides
• Kinder Chromebook Badge - these Kinders loved the stickers I printed for them to take home to show their parents and encourage them to ask the students about the Chromebooks

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