Sunday, January 27, 2008

Week #3: 24-7 Learning is Underway!


Ok... honest thoughts. You've finished one whole week with a MacBook by your side 24/7. What are your initial reactions to this whole initiative? Is it going to mean more work? more learning? more distractions? more opportunities? What does it feel like to be "cutting edge?" Were there more or less problems during the first week than you thought? What do you think will be the best thing about the rest of the school year with a MacBook? What do you think will be the worst thing about it? Any constructive criticism towards the teaching/administration end can be offered as long as we all understand that everything is a "work in progress" and we're all learning together! Anything else you wish to add on the topic of 24-7 Learning at O'Neill Public Schools would be great for this week's blog. For the SMH students, you can give your honest opinions looking in from the outside.

BONUS points this week for anyone who submits a MacBook picture to the KBRX website at: http://www.kbrx.com/macbook.htm SMH kids can substitute any photo with technology and submit it to me at mrsmorrow@mac.com

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am having fun using the macbooks and i think most people are. Of course there are gliches and problems but there is always pros and cons to everything. I think down the road this could really help learning. The one thing that bothers me is that i take notes on my mac book for class but automatically it seems some teachers think that is fine but when reviewing notes they say lids down...so how do you look at your notes with the lids down...anyways i really do enjoy being able to be apart of this!

MichaelH said...

I think that this will be a good experience for all the kids and teachers bringing all this in because before you know it, everything will be digital and handled by software. Yes there might be some distractions but it will help kids towards excelling in school and in life. I believe that this is going to be a valuable experience for everyone involved.

Brittany said...

I think the Macs work very well for 24/7 learning. Not only does it help with your homework but it helps you become more familiar with technology. Which is becoming more and more common. It's nice with homework because you can do it wherever you are, and you don't have to wait for a sibling or parent to get off of your home computer. Getting more homework isn't a factor with me because not everyone at St. Mary's has a mac. I think it will give people more initiative to do their homework at least in the beginning because it seems "more fun" in a way. But it is also a little distracting because when you are studying you always want to be doing something else. I think writing papers will be a lot easier because if I have an idea I will be able to "write" it down real quick and come back to it later. Also, it will help with Journalism, the photoshop on the macs is way better than the one we have on our school computer. This way I will be able to work on my page when I'm not in class. I am glad that we have an opportunity to use the mac books I believe it is a great learning experience.

~*~ JaCqUeLiNe ~*~ said...

I think that the laptops are good for some classes like in accounting or in this class. They are good to type reports on but one teacher gave us homework on angel during the snow day just because we have the laptops. Just because we have the laptops doesn't mean we have internet. The computers have proved to be a distraction in some classes but they are a lot faster for taking notes.

AmandaH said...

From the start i loved the idea of the 27/7 learning program. In some classes we have had more homework or done homework differently but all around it is a great idea. For example, in Government and Spanish we have been using our macs almost everyday, but we've never used them at all in Chemistry. I first thought that there would be a lot of problems with the macs but things have been going great on mine.

Tiff said...

I think the macs for 24/7 learning is a good idea and I think it is working out fine. I am not getting any more work because there are only 5 of us at St. Mary's that have them. They make it easier to take notes and it is nice that I can always have it with me, if I am writing a paper and I don't get it finished then I don't have to send it to myself and save it on a disk. I am still learning about alot of things on the mac but it will all come easier as the time goes on. The best thing about it is it makes alot of things easier but the worst thing is that we don't have internet outside of the Public school, unless we hook it up to our own.

Anonymous said...

I like having the macbooks. I use my mac everyday at school. I can do some much with them. I actually like taking notes now and if you have math homework and dont want to bring the book home you can just go online and look at the problems. I also use it for others things like we just made a psa on my mac for BRAVO. I actually think there was less problems the first week than I thought.

W said...

I am very impressed by the 24/7 Learning program, and Macs as well. Before I used a Mac I would see one and think oh thats a Mac and then I would move on with my life. Now that I have had the chance to use a mac I really enjoy the operating system much more than windows. Almost everything is much cleaner and easier to get to and use in my opinion. I think that the fact that the MacBook's have your name on them and you are the only one that will use that computer really helps students be more responsible handling their computer. This program shows that O'Neill Public Schools puts learning first, and gives them the tools to help them suceed. I am grateful to be apart of this!

PS: The MacBook's have CS3 and that is really nice to be able to use!

W said...
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Ciera said...

I think that the mac books have become very useful in managing our assignments; it's nice to have everything in the same place! However, I think that they also have caused our assignments and daily routines to become more complicated. For someone completely computer illiterate, these processes can be very complicated!

Kylie said...

I love having my mac book.. it opens up so many opportunities but it also give the teachers more inititive to give us more homework now, knowing that we have the resources!Its an awesome expierence and will help me with all the tech im going to have to use in college!

DannyLee said...

I think that the laptops will give you a little more homework, and also a lot more responsibility in getting your work done :)

Taylor said...

I love having the macbooks to use every day whenever I need to! It's nice...we no longer have to go to the library to do internet research, that can now just be done in our own classrooms. I like taking notes now, it's actually kind of fun and it's just another reason to use our macbooks. There are a few teachers that try to do to many activities on the computers and it just get overwhelming sometimes. That's the only thing I dislike. But, for the main part, I think the macbooks were a great investment and are an awesome way to get learning underway!!

Anonymous said...

Honestly, I think it's great to have use of a laptop. It really gives you some outside technology and gives you more resources. 24/7 Learning is a great program.