Myles is 11 years old. He enjoys playing football outside of school. Myles also loves to read. His favorite books are "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series. Myles so far loves having the devices in his classes. It has really changed learning for him.
June 2016 Over the 2015-2016 year I have had many different changes in my learning. Having the devices in class has had its ups and downs for me. Some of the good things would be when I am doing my work and I am not sure about something I can Google it and have some information. It also has kept me organized during the entire year. I do not have to worry about cleaning out my binder every week or losing a paper because of the computers. A lot of my notes I take in class are done in a program called OneNote. OneNote is a program that you can take notes, teachers give you homework and feedback. and you do not need any WiFi connection to use it. Because of this program, I didn’t need to carry around notebooks, which was also a plus.
Some things I did not like was that teachers could now give us a lot of homework since it was so easy to add to the computer. This made all of my homework build up which was a pain. Another thing is that when just one virus gets into your computer it can’t start. My computer had to be fixed and they had to delete all of my memory and I lost a lot of things.
If I could give advice to some of the students next year getting devices, one thing I would say is you should back up any important information that you have because it can get deleted and you may never get it back. It is important to save things to your drive rather than the computer itself. If you save everything to the computer, you might end up like me and lose a lot of important things.
Overall, I am glad we got the devices this year. I have learned a lot with them and they have made learning a lot more fun!
April 2016 Having devices in the classroom has really changed the way I can review for a test. It used to be that in most classes I would have to use my textbook and look through my notes. But now, with the devices we use a website called Kahoot. It involves everyone in the classroom and everyone must answer with a time limit. You can have up to 4 options. You get a certain amount of points based on if you get the answer correct and how fast you got the answer. It is a lot of fun and tests you on what you learned in class. Another website that is like this is called Quizizz. It is a lot like Kahoot, but you can move at you own pace. The questions come up on your computer and as you answer it tells you where you are compared to the rest of the class. Once everyone is done, you can see the final results of the class. I really enjoy using both of these websites. Teachers can use them to give the students an idea of what is on the test. Now we can review in a fun way!
January 2016 So far throughout the year, we have been introduced to a lot of new and exciting things on our devices. Being a Lighthouse School allows us to work with a lot of different programs. One of my favorite programs we use in class is called Nearpod. Nearpod is an educational learning tool and it gives everyone a voice. I like it the most because it gives you a variety of ways to send your answers to your teacher. You can either type or draw your answers. When it is used in class, your teacher controls what you see on your device. It kind of looks like a slideshow. Your teacher can also assign things to do for homework. The best part of this program is that it is very easy to use. Having it in class has really helped make learning fun. I am excited to see what the rest of the year brings with all of this new technology!
October 2015 In reading we are doing research on legends and myths. We get to do all of our research on our devices in class. It is very different from elementary school because in elementary school we only had about 7 desktops in the classroom. Not everyone could do research at the same time. Now, we can all do anything on technology at the same time. I also like that I can finish my work at home on my device, including homework.