Gabler Sabin's Crushin' It With Chromebooks, Meghan Gabler, Sabin

Wow! Can I just say I wish Chromebooks were around when I was a student! These have made my students so much more interested and intrigued to learn how to maneuver, explore and even research! I will say for the most part my time has been devoted to working with my 5th - 8th graders on their high school research projects. I will get to that in a bit. For right now I want to talk about how helpful these Chromebooks have been in every other aspect of my teaching and classroom.

As I am sure many of you have similar library media schedules, you see the whole building, or nearly all of it. With rearranging and shifting of classes, my classes that once had a computer for every student when needed now leave me shorthanded nearly 10 to 15 computers for roughly half of my classes. Flash forward to my amazing Chromebooks and the ability for me to set-up students right where they are right when I need them to have access to a computer. From Kindergarten through 8th grade I have been able to help reach the needs of all of my students at once if needed. They hold charge throughout the whole day so I don’t have to stress about getting them back into the case when one class is finished. They turn on immediately so those impatient students don’t have to wait long to access the information they are seeking. They are easy to move around so I can strategically place the students and the Chromebooks right where I need them.

Another reason I am thankful for my Chromebooks is due to the rolling out of CPS Connects. The thought of asking my third and fourth graders to sign on to something I am not all that familiar with was daunting. However, I was able to work with them in small groups via my amazing Chromebooks and get them all set up. They were so excited to be working next to one another. They were moving around helping each other and showing their friends what next steps to take. When they are sitting at the desktops in my library it is much harder to talk to their friends and to move around because of the tables. Once again the lack of cords, mice, clunky computers and such made this experience so much easier for my 3rd and 4th graders.

Lastly, my 5th - 8th graders are at the point they get depressed if we have a day when we aren’t using the Chromebooks! They still love the iPad’s and even the desktops. However, they know just what to do with the Chromebooks as for signing on as a guest and beginning their work within Google Drive. They of course still need some work with logging out of their CPS Google accounts, but at least they are pro’s at logging the previous student’s out when it is their time to log in. Overall, I feel having these Chromebooks are giving my students the best chance to be up to date and on pace to keep up with the GAFE tools and skills that I feel they should be taking with them wherever they go. Thank you!