By: Kevin McGonegal
This fall has brought a cascade of new technology to the Fletcher
Maynard Academy. As part of a city-wide initiative, we have received 70
new Google Chromebooks, housed in three rolling carts. A Chromebook is a
laptop computer that runs the Chrome operating system, which is built
around Google's Chrome web browser. These will allow our students and
teachers access to all of the various online resources we use at our
school, in addition to the suite of Google Apps for Education (also
known as Google Docs) that all of our third through fifth grade students
will be using this year for all of their word processing, presentation,
and spreadsheet needs.
With
the technical setup complete, FMA's Information, Communication, And
Technology Services (ICTS) team, consisting of Aaron Christian
(technician), Kevin McGonegal (Instructional Technology Specialist) and
Aishah Abdul-Musawwir (Library Media Specialist), has begun to get these
into our eager students' hands! Thanks to our new building-wide
wireless network, these laptops will enable our students to interact
with curriculum in the classroom in ways never before possible at the
FMA.
In addition to our new Chromebooks, you might also see our
new iPad cart rolling through our halls! The CPS ICTS Department has
provided all of our elementary schools with a cart of 10 iPads, whose
primary role will be to support our implementation of the new Symphony
Math application we are using as part of our new RTI model. Happily, we
are also able to use the iPads (along with 10 additional units purchased
last year) for a myriad of other purposes, and once the setup is
complete, you'll see our students engaging with various curricular apps,
conducting Internet research, and even using the camera functionality
to photograph and film school events.
The ICTS team is excited to
be supporting our staff and students with our new mobile technology,
and we look forward to using our new tools to support our curriculum in
engaging and innovative ways!