Hi everyone!
Welcome to my first blog post! This is going to be a work in progress as I experiment with more tech throughout the school year. I've never kept a blog before, so here goes nothing! This will be a space to share successes and failures - and hopefully where we can share ideas!
Well I just finished the first week with my third grade kiddos, and I am absolutely exhausted but also excited about the upcoming year! I had limited time to set up my classroom this year, which was a challenge. The hardest part was rearranging the furniture! I needed to move my rug up to the front of the room (it was in the back previously) which changed EVERYTHING. For today's post, I'm just going to focus on my laptop station. It used to be on a large rectangle table at the front of the room. It looked like this:
Welcome to my first blog post! This is going to be a work in progress as I experiment with more tech throughout the school year. I've never kept a blog before, so here goes nothing! This will be a space to share successes and failures - and hopefully where we can share ideas!
Well I just finished the first week with my third grade kiddos, and I am absolutely exhausted but also excited about the upcoming year! I had limited time to set up my classroom this year, which was a challenge. The hardest part was rearranging the furniture! I needed to move my rug up to the front of the room (it was in the back previously) which changed EVERYTHING. For today's post, I'm just going to focus on my laptop station. It used to be on a large rectangle table at the front of the room. It looked like this:
If you look carefully, you can see the jumbled mess of cords underneath the table - not my proudest moment. Well, now my carpet area takes up the space where that table used to be. I had to find a new laptop station that would be able to hold those ten laptops. Here's my new set up:
I took a small student desk and put it in the back corner of my room, in between a bookshelf and the wall. Two black plastic vertical organizers allow the laptops to take up barely any desk space at all! The white plastic bins below are where the laptops are stored at the end of the day - so they are not in pain view. One of my class jobs is "Teacher's Assistant," and they will be responsible for unplugging the laptops and gently placing them in the drawers at the end of the day. The picture on the right shows a small bookshelf where I keep two pink bins of headphones. Last year, my class set of headphones was stored in a box inside a cabinet - such a hassle to get to! This year, I thought it would be easier if they were more accessible for students. So here they are!
Here's an aerial view of the laptop station. I put two pieces of felt underneath the organizers so they don't scratch the desk. In the future, I might opt for a small tablecloth. The charging cords are attached to the back edge of the desk with large binder clips, so they will never slip behind the table. Then I used zip ties to hold any excess cords together, so they don't pool on the ground like they did in my setup from last year. Underneath the desk is a power strip that is plugged into the wall. Conveniently, the white drawers underneath the table cover the wires which I am totally happy with!
We haven't started using laptops since the first week of school was focused on basic procedures and getting to know each other. My goal is to use them during this coming week! We'll probably set up our Google Classroom accounts and get in some typing practice at the very least. Excited to get the students used to tech routines!
Do you have a laptop station? Would you try this setup? I would love to hear about what works in your classroom! Leave a comment and share what works for you!
We haven't started using laptops since the first week of school was focused on basic procedures and getting to know each other. My goal is to use them during this coming week! We'll probably set up our Google Classroom accounts and get in some typing practice at the very least. Excited to get the students used to tech routines!
Do you have a laptop station? Would you try this setup? I would love to hear about what works in your classroom! Leave a comment and share what works for you!