October has flown right by like a witch on her broom. With the autumn breezes many changes have taken place in my room surrounding the use of technology. My hopes were that we would be further along with being able to use technology independently at this point in the year. Unfortunately our hiccups in the room have not been due to technology itself but in trying to get a schedule and routine in place that meets all the needs of my students. Currently I am utilizing the laptops in my classroom as a morning center for students in order to give individualized instruction to each of my students during reading block. During my reading block I rotate 3 of my students between the computers while an assistant monitors independent work and computer usage. My students still struggle with logging in to the computer and to combat this problem they have their own card with username and password in order to give them a visual support to complete login procedures as independently as possible. Once each student is logged into the laptop they have a choice of software programs and online sites to use. I am trying to determine how to adapt laptop usage for my students to make it a worthwhile learning tool for them.
