Batteries

I have found that some of the batteries just pop off easily. This creates a situation where they do not charge on the cart. After checking a few machines, I found that the slide lock was not all the way locked on some of the machines. So, when a student holds it by the battery side, they simply pop off. I have now included a discussion on how to carry the machines so that they do not accidentally disengage the battery. I have also checked them all for a secure lock. Hopefully this will eliminate this problem. I have three machines that do not show icons when the student logs on. I have had to go through back doors to help them access the programs and sites that we need. This is time consuming and distracting. Here goes a help ticket!

So they finally arrive!

Our first week with the new netbooks has been wonderful and wonderfully horrible. Adjusting to the security steps has been a challenge. But I now have most of the fifth grade signed on. It took 45 minutes with each class to teach them how to get the computers out, log on, log off and put the machines away. I hope the next session goes a bit faster. The students are all excited about the machines. I had several ask if they could purchase them and how. The tablet feature was the most popular to ooh and ahh about.

Some of the pitfalls were

• The cart is tricky! The size of the battery pack makes the machines a tight fit. 
• With the cords facing the back of the cart, there is no way to quickly assess whether the cords are plugged in or not. 
• If a machine has a dead battery, you have to take the back of the cart off to be able to get a cord to plug the machine in while a student is working.
• There are occasions when some administrator access would speed things up. We have already encountered a missing plug in for a web search that we were doing so we had to abandon the search.

Some of the solutions we have found:

• Turn one machine upside down in each slot to help them fit better and put them in together. It is still tough and a bit time consuming, but they do fit better.
• Turn all of the machines around. We needed to feed more of the cords through from the back, but we made it work. Now I can visually see if they are all plugged in and a student can quickly push on each plug to be sure that they are completely plugged in. 
• I have taken the back off so many times that I decided to leave it off during the day and put it back on at the end of the day.
• I will be putting in a help ticket frequently, I am afraid. There are things that I could trouble shoot on my own if I were aloud, but as it is, I will need frequent visits from the techs.