RE10: Online + Offline Reflections

---

Organizing Your Device

---

Good news: You can sign out your district-issued Chromebooks this week. That opportunity opens up a number of other opportunities, especially in a class that embraces an Internet-driven, interstitial access to learning. We’ve always been fortunate enough to have a class set of Chromebooks, but now every student has access to a computer, which means we’ve leveled the playing field entirely. You all have access to a device. The choice of using a computer or other device is now yours.

Your first assignment from this post is to organize your personal device, which includes (but isn’t limited to) the following:

• District-issued Chromebook
• Personal laptop
• Smartphone
• Tablet

Make this device into a tool for learning. This is deeper than setting up Google Drive and Gmail, although you need your Google tech to be organized; the device itself should be organized, from what tabs open when you launch a browser to which sites you bookmark to how you arrange and access apps. You are leaning on all four kinds of organization outlined in this post:

Getting Things Done

The device you choose is a physical object, much like a folder or backpack. It will only work as well as your mental approach to it. And you will need to plan ahead in terms of schedule in order to maximize what you do in class, which remains the all-important 36th chamber of instruction.

Assignment: Organize your device for learning, and then:

1. Take screenshots of that organization, including screenshots of your Internet browser, bookmarks, Google Drive folders, and Gmail setup. Include screenshots of your smartphone’s or tablet’s app arrangement, too, if you use one.
2. Embed these screenshots in a Google Doc.
3. Explain your organizational approach for each screenshot or set of screenshots.
4. Attach that document to the appropriate Google Classroom assignment.

---

Printed Annotations

---

On Tuesday, February 28, you received a printed copy of this post:

Empathy and Blame: Essay Approach

The four quotations embedded in that post offer insight into how we approach essay writing. You’ve had time now to engage with the assignment online and offline, with the freedom to annotate and take notes as you see fit. That lets us talk about some of what separates your offline learning from your online learning. You need a mix of both, and you need to make choices that consider the efficacy of both.

Assignment: Write briefly but insightfully about what you did with the printed copy of the post and what you learned from the printed copy, answering some or all of these questions:

1. To what extent did you annotate the printed copy of the quotations?
2. What insight did that bring to the offline reading?
3. Were these authors’ ideas clearer in some way when you read the printed copy?
4. Do you feel the difference in terms of learning and engagement when you consider these quotations offline?

Attach a copy of your responses to the appropriate Google Classroom assignment.