Managing the Laptop at Home

In the realm of your home, you should feel comfortable setting boundaries for your child and their school laptop. We recommend that you take an active role in your child’s laptop use. It is perfectly reasonable for you to insist that the laptop be used in an open place in your home. No teacher will ever assign a project that must be done in their bedrooms with the door closed!

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This from the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” division.

Our students are so used to having headphones attached that they feel naked without them! Instead of fighting this, why not think about how we can provide content in an audio format?

The iTunes store is not just a place to buy music. It is a great repository of podcasts from all over the world on topics as varied as your curriculum. Did you know that more and more colleges are publishing lectures and other resources on a section of iTunes called iTunes U? Check out this tutorial from Apple to learn more.

Not interested in a whole lecture? There are LOTS of short podcasts available for free download or subscription. Some of the more popular ones are GrammarGirl, How Stuff Works, and yes, even MATH! Access them by opening iTunes, going to the iTunes store, and finding the link for podcasts. Once there, you will be able to sort them by categories- look for education. On the education page, there will be a link on the right side for POWERSEARCH. You can search the descriptions for specific content areas.

The photo below shows a selection of History options:

Sample of iTunes podcast selections

Sample of iTunes podcast selections

math_slideshow

7th Grade student did a combined math/tech project with Mr. Quinn and Mrs. Leimbach. They created a slideshow that helped them work though an algebraic problem, showing their understanding of how to create a presentation and how to solve the problem. They then exported their slideshow as a quicktime movie, making it suitable for download to their laptops or iPods.