Kinders on Chromebooks!

Monday was our first day back after Winter Break, and I was lucky enough to get to spend the afternoon helping some kindergarten friends log onto Chromebooks for the first time! It was exhausting, but it was also super fun!

Before Winter Break, our EdTech team made arrangements to lead "Kinder Chromebook Login" sessions at one of the schools in our district. We originally planned to lead sessions in four different classrooms, but we ended up only getting to two classrooms. 

For both sessions, I took the lead while two other EdTech team members and the classroom teacher provided support. Here are some of my takeaways from this experience:

Challenges

Hidden Passwords

When our students type in their usernames, they can see it. That means that they can self-asses for errors, and we can easily help them identify how to make corrections. 

Unfortunately, students cannot see their passwords as they type them. This makes it really difficult to identify any errors. A couple of students typed their passwords correctly the first time, but most students needed one of the adults to sit with them and watch them type in their password. It would be REALLY challenging for a classroom teacher to be able to provide that type of support on their own. They would probably need to utilize a small group approach.

Number & Letter Recognition

Our kindergarten students are at many different levels when it comes to their ability to identify numbers and letters. Some students were able to find the numbers and letters in their login information quickly, while others needed significant support.

Special Characters

The district usernames and passwords contain a few special characters, including the following:

• period (.)
• at sign (@)
• dash (-)

Students definitely had a more difficult time locating these symbols, especially if they were not very familiar with the keyboard in general.

Celebrations

Fancy A (@)

I was fortunate enough to observe one of our Instructional Coaches lead a similar session with kindergarten students at another school back in December. I was able to use some of the same strategies she used when I led the sessions this week. One of the most helpful strategies I learned from her was the way she broke down the steps in order to help students type in the (@) symbol in their usernames. She called it the "Fancy A."

I placed a Chromebook under the document camera so I could model the steps on the Smartboard. Then, I walked the students through these steps:

1. Raise both hands in the air.
2. With your left hand, press the "Shift" key. 
3. Still pressing down on the "Shift" key, take your right hand and press the number 2. 

This worked really well in both kindergarten classes!

Blue Buttons

Students have to go through at least 4 different screens before they are logged onto the Chromebook. To move to the next screen, they have to locate and push a button with a different word on each screen, including "Next", "Sign in", "Yes," and "Accept." Our kindergarten students aren't all at a level where they can identify those words. 

Luckily, EVERY button is blue! This made it super easy for our students to identify the correct button, even if they couldn't identify the word or even the first letter of the word.

Kinder Perseverance

The best part of the whole experience was getting to see how hard our little friends worked and how proud of themselves they were when they successfully logged into their accounts! I'm really excited to see what these students can do as they get better at logging in and are able to use the Chromebooks to enhance their learning experience!