As we near the end of October and my school has its Fall round of conferences with families, I was recently pleased to notice how many of my students use the language of our class contract (rules for our class) in their reflections about how the year is going for them. Creating our contract was a multi-step process starting with a read aloud and ending with a signed contract and accompanying art projects (and of course a shared understanding about the kind of community we want to create).

We started with a read aloud (always a wonderful place to start!). Our first chapter book read aloud of the year is Save Me a Seat by Gita Varadarajan and Sarah Weeks. We read a few chapters and a day and do a variety of responses to our reading to help us empathize with the characters. The main characters’ negative experiences at school provide a contrast as we think about how we want to make each other feel at school.

However, to specifically start our conversation about our class contract (and community) we read The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael Lopez. (This is a new picture book and it is gorgeous! We highly encourage you to read it yourself.) After we read this book, we ask students what we should have on our contract to make sure everyone feels welcome to share their stories and be themselves in our class. We also remind students of their Hopes and Dreams (which we created a few days before) and think about what we need in our classroom to make these come true.

Next, students brainstormed in pairs about their ideas for the class contract. Then, they had time to work independently and wrote down a few of their ideas on a notecard. We reminded students to make positive statements (tell what we should do) and think about the most important things to include.

The next step is to filter the ideas down to bigger ideas so that everyone’s contribution is included, but we also don’t have a contract with 50 rules! We try to show students our process so it is transparent. We do this by listing the final statements we came up with in bold and sorting all of our students’ suggestions under the relevant statement. For example, don’t be territorial went under “know your place.”

The final version of our class contract!

We ended up with 5 statements. The final number of statements can be more or less depending on your students’ ages, but 5 statements are comprehensive enough to cover everything and brief enough to easily remember. We should also mention that this process is Responsive Classroom inspired!

Our final step was sharing our final contract. Everyone in our class signed it (in fancy metallic Sharpie!) to show their commitment to upholding it. When we say everyone, this includes other adults in the building! We also asked students to think about what the contract means to them and pick at least one component of our contract to exemplify through art. They could use foil, popsicle sticks, paper, glue, markers, crayons, and more (really anything we had in the room). Students worked hard to conceptualize something that was important to them from the contract, and we took photos of them with their finished products. Now, our contract and all of our artwork graces a wall in our classroom!

All year, we keep going back to the same language that is in our contract. We notice when we are following it, when we could follow it better, use it to redirect students, use it in our Morning Message, use it on our conference prep social emotional reflection, and more!

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Congratulations! Your school has just received a gift or made the leap and decided to be a '21st century' school and now all of your students have….. COMPUTERS.

Dun. dun. Dun.

We know. It's exciting because these tools provide access to so much knowledge and so many resources! It's also terrifying because…well, the internet. We are constantly trying to sort out what it looks like to be the best educators we can be while utilizing the computers our students are lucky to have in our classroom. As we searched around to see how other teachers have rolled out computers, we found there really aren't many resources out there to give teachers the skills on how to unleash these tools that can seemingly do almost anything with their students.

We are still learning and will have new ideas for you as we sort out how this can work best with our 3rd graders this year. But for now, here a few tips we have from our past few years of working with our (5th grade) students and computers.

*Note: Most of these steps should happen BEFORE students even get to TOUCH their computers.*

1. Make an agreement before they even get to touch or use their computers.

*For us, this took the shape of a 'Technology Covenant' in which we agreed upon how they were to be used (bringing in our classroom rules as well) and then we had all the students sign the agreement.

*We also (we wanted to be preventative), had a printed version we called the technology contract that we sent home. The contract said that failure to use the tool properly would result in consequences. For us, the consequences usually meant the computer goes and sits on a teacher's desk for the rest of the lesson. We want to be honest and note that this became challenging at times depending on the lesson (we stuck to it anyways) and sometimes with parents. We make sure to check in with other teachers our students have to ensure we are all on the same page-- miscommunication about expectations leads to endless, "Well, in Spanish we get to….etc!" It is also really important to ask administration what they see the escalation of consequences being and how they want to handle different aspects of misconduct so that you aren't figuring it all out as things come up. Naturally, there will always be surprises!

2. Explain 'work' vs. 'personal'.

We showed our students our work computers. We made a point to talk them through how we email colleagues about work and only about work on these computers. We might make a new document for work. We might look on a website for resources about the Pamunkey tribe for work. We do not use our computers to talk to our personal friends (yes, we do actually have friends..) or family etc. Their school computer is also just that: their work computer. That means it is solely for academic purposes. We also made it clear that everything that happens on their computer isn't private: adults at school can see what is done on it (and we don't want to see any of their personal business please and thank you!). We come back to this when we discuss how to properly email a teacher, as well. It is important to note that they will seek the social options with computer use and that, that makes sense, even though it can be frustrating from a teacher's perspective. We try to give them space on Goodreads as the social outlet, or talking about articles they have read online in groups, as well as having group projects that require a computer from time to time… we're still working on harnessing this!

3. Show how you expect them to carry it, put it away, and be closed if someone is talking.

Modeling all of these expectations makes a difference. We have a rule that all computers must be slanted downwards (or closed) when someone is talking and we wait until that is the case (and ask the speaker to wait) if it is taking someone a moment to catch on. There are few things that would degrade a sense of classroom community and conversation as much as some kids clicking around on their screens while others are talking.

4. Be prepared to differentiate for computer familiarity.

Some students will know how to use the computer with ease, others will be brand new to how to open a browser page. Go through whatever steps (in general) you want them to do and then be prepared to have a stream of questions from some less experienced computer users. We project and go through the steps and have kids keep up with us as best they can. The students who are faster, we ask to turn and check in with their friends who aren't there yet. We also prepare a task ( ie: "You can update your Goodreads when you are done") so that as we check in with students who need more support, our faster students aren't aimlessly on their computers.

5. Have a classroom computer expert.

Along the lines of the strategy above, it was a great confidence boost for some of our students to have this position, and they were very helpful in turn with students who needed support. It's nice for both teacher and the student to be able to say, "Go check in with 'fellow awesome kid' first".

6. Ensure that some sites are blocked.

What can we say? Most young people aren't ready for the depth of the world wide web. As adults, we know we aren't even sure what is out there a lot of the time (and we aren't ready either!). This is not being anti-tech, this is understanding there is a ton we do not understand about the internet. Ask your tech person for assistance. All we can say is it is helpful and prevents loads of unnecessary drama. We all push boundaries and computers happen to be a very fun and sly tool to do so. It will happen at some point, and it is much better to have to shut down kids goofing around about a photo of a man with a duck body and a diaper on (we truly don't know, ask our kids!) than the many, many alternatives.. For us,so far, this also means no listening to music while they work. We've tried it as a support for different students, but we have yet to see it be beneficial enough to outweigh the pieces that come with it.

7. Have a countdown / time warning.

If you're like me, (and most of our students!) it is ridiculously hard to snap out of focusing on the computer. It is hard to stop a task you are engrossed in, in general. As annoying as it might sound, even for older students I'd suggest having a countdown. We give our students a 5 minute warning (telling some of our slower to stop humans that, that means right now), along with a 1 minute warning. From there, we usually have a student countdown (it is the classroom 'timer' job) from 10 in which we have all computers closed and away. By the middle of the year, if we've done some coaching and it is still a struggle, we will simply close computers for students if they aren't ready to go on time. This sets the precedent that shifting gears, means shifting gears and we are done with that tool for now.

8. In lessons, explain everything you need them to know first, then let them open computers.

Along the lines of the previous tip, once their computers are open- you've lost them. Sure they are completely engaged in activity, but it will be pointless to try to wrangle everyone back together once computers are open. Making it the expectation that they come to lesson with their computers closed (or leave them on the table and meet you somewhere else in the room), is a great way to have a clear routine.

9. Be clear about what 'writing' on the computer looks like.

Handing students computers and then saying, 'get started with your writing!' during a writing block is overwhelming for a lot of students and will lead to all sorts of unwanted computer use or unproductive forms of writing. You'll see some diligently typing away (but probably not referencing their graphic organizer!) and others who are typing a sentence and then changing the font size, the color, the font size, the color.. You get the idea. Modeling what writing time looks like with a couple different options is very helpful. We had all students fill out graphic organizers on paper first in the beginning of the year before they could go get their computers and start drafting. As the year went on, some students had graphic organizers we emailed to them that they could type into as a form of differentiation, while others needed to still use paper first. We also have a rule that you cannot change font or colors or anything else in your document until you have been approved to do so by a teacher. Especially for our students with focus challenges, the computer can be captivating and distracting in ways that are hard to reset from. We are also fans of having students print out their draft to edit a hard copy-- they catch so many more mistakes and actually learn how to edit!

10. Be patient with yourself/ them-- we're all just trying to figure computers out!

Computers are fantastic tools. The worlds they open up and the resources we get to use are invaluable. We especially love Newsela, Goodreads, BrainPop, Google Docs, NoRedInk, and more. With these great tools, comes a territory of students learning how to use them in school while also taking in content or other skills. Those are a lot of moving pieces. In addition, whole class lessons getting students set up on a new account or something online always requires a ton of calm on our end-- if anyone has tips for that please share!

We're grateful for the computers in our room and hope that some of these tips help you feel a little more prepared as you roll out computers in your room. Onwards!