The One Computer Classroom

By: Chris Beal

The following inquiry was posed and the responses are below:

"I'm going to present a workshop in August to teachers in my district on what to do if you have only one computer in the classroom.  Any suggestions or resources you might have?"

Davidson software bought out Roger Wagner a while back, he published a good book on the "One Computer Classroom".  Do a web search for info.

One good method is to have kids work on off line assignments in a small

group that requires them to write, draw, research or design something, then have them use the appropriate software/hardware tolls on the computer to create the final draft of the project.  Assign various roles, so each member of the group completes a part of the project and has a chance to use the machine for the good of the group.

One concern that teachers frequently have is how will they keep track of

which students have used the computer and which haven't in a particular week or for a particular project.  To help you can show them how - use 2 soup cans, one labeled "I have used the computer" and the other "I haven't used the computer"; they then create one popcycle sticks for each student.  When each student has used the computer, the stick gets moved to the "have used" can.  The same strategy can be applied with poster board and clothes ins.

Another helpful tip is to teach teachers how to use students as watchers,

doers, and teachers.  For example, the teacher first teaches 3 students how to do the activity on the computer.  One student becomes the teacher

(probably the strongest student), one is the doer and one is the watcher.

Then as one student finishes on the computer, he/she becomes the teacher,

the watcher becomes the doer, and a new student rotates in as the watcher. This frees up the teacher's time to implement and monitor other activities in the classroom.

Tom Snyder productions offers a workshop like this and they give out a book that has great activities.  It is called the One Computer Classroom.  You may be able to get it from them and use in your workshop.

Go to the following site at Furman University:

http://www.furman.edu/~pecoy/aam/index.htm

Select Resources and The One Computer Classroom. This is a great listing.

I could say a lot but I'll just mention "Tom Snyder" at

http://www.tomsnyder.com/

Particular attention to their Decisions, Decisions series and the Great

Solar System Rescue and Great Ocean Rescue type of packages they sell.

The one computer classroom makes a great learning center. I have done some of the following.

Prepare PowerPoint presentations that demonstrate a skill set that you want your students to learn. Use it to model the work done in class. It becomes a record that students can refer back to if they need more review. For examples of this refer to Jerry Suave's work on our technology grant the past year. He did some excellent examples while learning to use PowerPoint to teach multiplication and division.

http://www.grps.k12.mi.us/technology/tlcg/Participants/homepage.spml

Here's also another unit plan about weather,

http://www.grps.k12.mi.us/technology/tlcg/weather/.

Current Events, choose a student or group of students to read, print and

share a current event with the class. You can choose the newspaper. Most of them are online.

http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Newspapers/

http://www.funbrain.com is a great resource. Not only do you have many fun practice exercises in every subject area, but the activities are evaluated for age appropriate ability levels. Funbrain.com also offers a test maker for the teacher. In the one computer classroom, you can have students complete this test one at a time, when you get to the computer lab or students can log in at home. Funbrain scores the tests for you. I think this is a good way for you to also conduct surveys with your students.

Teach your students about databases and spreadsheets. The class can work

together to research statistical data and then input the facts into a

database. Now show students the benefit of organizing information this way. Over time collect information from several research projects and use the results to create learning centers that will require the students to use the databases or spreadsheets. I like to create laminated question cards that can be pulled from a box. These cards are numbered and I have punch-holed answer keys in my desk for quick checking.

A co-worker and myself presented a workshop at the Kid's Who Know and Do

Conference this year on the one computer classroom (and we have each taught in that format before). The web site we created is still up.  The URL is http://www.co-nect.net/workshops/kwkd.  Feel free to look it over and if I can be of any help explaining our approach, I'll be glad to do that.  I also have a presentation on the SCAN's Report which is a nice intro into the why!

One computer classroom, computer classroom, computers in the classroom, classroom computers

About the Author

Chris Beal, C.O.O. of InandOutComputers.com, specializes in helping schools find and purchase high quality, recent model computers.

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