It’s the beginning of the year, you and your students are excited to start a new. New songs, new lessons, and new equipment. When it comes to any equipment in the classroom it’s important to lay down a set of rules and procedures on how to use it so students will know proper use and it will stay out of the grasp of the looming junk pile of broken, improperly used tools.

Over the past week I’ve spent most of it laying down the laws of using our netbook carts while showing them how to maneuver the internet to http://www.quavermusic.com starting the process of getting almost 300 students onto my Teacher Admin Panel classes. It’s a long process of getting them acquainted to procedures and rules but it pays off when the tech projects begin later on in the year and my help line goes from 20 to 1 or 2.

Here, in my class the list of technology rules is plain and simple for my little ones:

1.) Be safe and respectful to the equipment. : Treat the technology as if it was your own. Two hands when carrying it, do not bang on it or throw it, be safe and be respectful at all times.

2.) Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want me to catch you doing.  : I circulate around the room a lot during classes. If you are doing something on the computer you would not want me to catch you doing, then don’t do it. I can see perfectly clear if you are attempting to figure out the webcam or trying to quietly play the music video to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” on Youtube..

3.) Follow directions. : Simple enough, follow the directions you are given that day to do on the computers. You will always be given a set of tasks for the computer and I expect you to follow and complete them.

The main consequence  for breaking any of the three rules is taking the equipment away and taking a break or leaving the room. I stay pretty much consistent with every rule and really have not had a problem yet. My students know that using the technology in my class is a privilege not a right and we do not HAVE to use it if they cannot treat it the right way!