1. Blended Learning to AdvanceStudent Thinking (BLAST) Tablet Orientation for Staff

2. Why us? Why now? Vision Statement of Charlottesville City Schools: Personal and Academic Excellence Inspired by a Collaborative and Innovative Learning Environment Through the establishment of blended learning environment, the vision of BLAST is to enhance and transform instruction in order to advance student thinking, thereby preparing our students for careers in an increasingly complex, interconnected world.

3. Today’s learners … Today’s learners have grown up in a digital world. They have cell phones, computers, multi-dimensional video entertainment, iPods, the Internet, and they have never seen a TV without a remote control. Our children are hyper-communicators, goal planners, multi-taskers, experts at figuring out and using technology, and they are active learners.

4. Because It’s The Right Thing To Do… Engaging students and making education relevant is critical...for our schools to continue to effectively and fully prepare the citizens and leaders of tomorrow.

5. Tablet vs iPad Similarities Touch screen Web access Multimedia capabilities Portable Built in & external keyboard available Extended battery life Differences USB/HDMI/SD card ports Rotation controlled by side bar button Full windows computer including Microsoft office Flash Response time and gestures Intel apps & Windows software (not apple store)

6. Tablet Basics

8. 2GB of Ram

9. 6-10 hours battery run time

11. Low maintenance: no moving parts

12. Light weight

13. Durable

16. Microsoft Office 2010

17. Microsoft OneNote

18. Smart Notebook

19. Arc GIS

20. Google Earth

21. Windows MovieMaker

22. Windows PhotoStory

23. Adobe Reader

24. PDF Maker

25. eBook Readers

27. Questions?