It's been a very exciting, frustrating, time poor and challenging past few weeks. I was so excited about the deployment of Chromebooks to all our Year 8 and 9 students. It started so well. The students were excited, I was excited, the teachers, ummmm mostly excited. However, technical aspects can dampen those excitements so quickly.
It came down to the students were loving their Chromebooks at home and detesting them at school. We had experienced enormous problems getting them to operate on a stable Internet Connection. [I am definitely not a Computer Technician, so I am probably completely wrong with the language]. Some students could connect to the current wireless, some could not. The students who could connect, could not get data downloading.
The environment that we were operating in was managed by our Catholic Education Office and we were the first school to introduce Chromebooks in our Diocese. Therefore it was a learning curve for everyone. After several weeks and many testings and the creation of a new wireless connection for the Chromebooks, we are off and running.
So for me now it is all about re-energising the enthusiasm for the Chromebooks. The students are not too bad, they still love them but for teachers they have lost the love clouded by the frustration of creating lessons using GAFE that just didn't work. So I have a challenge ahead of me to encourage our teachers to use them again in the classroom. The bottom line is that I firmly believe that Chromebooks are a wonderful addition to our College and I am looking forward to working with teachers to ensure that the potential of the Chromebook as a learning enhancement to the Classroom is achieved.
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