Chromecast: A need in EVERY Chromebook Classroom

After a conversation with someone in my district, and a bit of luck, I happened to procure a Chromecast for my classroom.

Dude. This thing is awesome.

The Chromecast is Google's version of an AppleTV, or Roku. Chromecast is built so you can stream content from your computer, phone, tablet, or other device to your HDTV. It doesn't have any apps or content on the device. It only can project the things you send to it from another device.

The Chromecast itself is not much bigger than a thumb drive, maybe about the size of your first thumb drive in 2004. It plugs directly into your HDMI, and gets power from either a USB on the back of your TV or projector, or it can also just be plugged into an electrical outlet.

Setup was pretty simple. You set the Chromecast up through your Chrome web browser on your computer, tablet, or phone. Chromecast allows you to cast any tab you have open in a browser to a TV or projector. It also allows you to project YouTube, Pandora, Netflix and other Chromecast enabled apps. I don't see much use for that in the classroom yet... but maybe I down the road. The projector in my classroom just happened to have an unused HDMI port, and a USB. Many projectors built after 2009 will have the same.

When I first contacted my district about using a Chromecast, they told me that the primary function of the device was for personal use, and they didn't see much of a classroom purpose. I kept hounding until I got one.
Why is it the best addition to a Chromebook Classroom that I've seen so far?

In the middle of a lesson, project, or discussion I can have a student cast the tab they have open onto the screen wirelessly from their seat. Once students install the Google Cast Extension, they can click a button and cast their screen. From the time I say "Billy, cast your screen," to the time that Billy's screen pops up on our projector is about 8-10 seconds. Is having Billy cast his screen from his seat somehow better than coming up and plugging in? I seem to think so.

Chromecast Extension

Here's the deal. When I first got Chromebooks, I went to Amazon and bought a $25 connector so that I could project the Chromebook to my projector. (My wired connections in the room are VGA, so I needed an adaptor. The HDMI isn't wired in my room, that's why the HDMI was available for the Chromecast) The $25 connector doesn't do a great job. The picture is jumpy, and grainy. With the Chromecast, the picture is HD, awesome, and oh yeah. The thing only costs $35 bucks. Totally worth it.

We have a TV in the entry way of our school. My principal is going to get one for there, and now we have a teaching space that any student Chromebook can access for a meaningful discussion. I find getting kids out of the room is helpful at times, but we don't always have a space to present our finding. We end up going back to the room for the "meat and potatoes" part of the lesson. Now we can do that wherever there is an HDMI input.

So in review:

• If you have Chromebooks
• If you have an available HDMI input
• If you have $35

Buy one, get it set up, and let me know if you think its as awesome as I do. 

Stop being boring. Be awesome instead.

Some weeks are boring.

Next week is going to be awesome.

During the 2014 Winter Olympics my students sent tweets to Olympians through my twitter account. Students would write something, I would tweet it out, and then from the other side of the world, an athlete, my students' new favorite sports hero, would favorite the tweet, or retweet, or in some cases, retweet us back. Can you imagine how powerful that would be? Have you had anyone retweet you? Now imagine how much cooler that'd be if it were a gold medalist. And you're only 10. Nobody could tell my kids that they weren't cool. They walked around with a chip on their shoulder for a week. Yahoo Sports wrote an article about it. Our local NBC affiliate, KSL picked it up too.

@mrlewisyoung that poster is awesome. Please tell them thank you for me. Maybe I can stop by and check it out in person when I get home.
— Christopher Fogt (@christopherfogt) February 21, 2014

Sometimes bronze medal winners tweet you back.

Last spring my students drafted letters to the Saratoga Springs city council, and then my students wrote letters this year as well, petitioning the city to change the name of the road in front of our school to "The Otter Way." Our mascot is the Otter, and the school song is titled "The Otter Way." Perhaps we  otter lay off the bad puns... but we don't.

So back to this week.

KSL heard about our twitter thing, and letter writing, and loved it. They wanted to meet us. On Tuesday my class has been invited to go up and visit the local NBC affiliate TV and radio station. We're going to tour their facilities and play with a green screen. This was made possible partially by a bit of bad luck with a snowstorm that cancelled a snowshoeing trip earlier this winter.

Sometimes people are impressed by your awesomeness

On Wednesday the City Council is visiting our school, along with the mayor for a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new road, The Otter Way. The City Council was impressed by the kids' letters, and even though they couldn't rename the road in front of the school, they purchased the signage and installed the sign posts to name the private roads on our campus.

So here is my plea. To teachers, to students, to parents, or anyone else reading this: Do something awesome. Too often we talk about the things students can't do, websites we shouldn't visit, and things we shouldn't do. Focus on the great things you should do. Let your kids find their house using google maps. Then show them how to find the actual path pioneers made as they brought their wagons and handcarts across the plains.

Sometimes messing around turns into an awesome lesson

Let them play with the camera on the iPad or Chromebook, even the effects... and then show them how to use that same tool to take a picture of a rock. Or a bug. Or that the mirror effect can teach a killer symmetry lesson.

When you look for awesome things you can do, it makes the tools we have in the classroom so much more engaging. If your kids keep texting in class, use kahoot.it, or m.socrative.com to engage their phone back into your lesson. Use instagram and hashtags to have kids document a science lab. (High five, big sister!)

Be like the teacher here in Utah that had the students send letters to get the state tree changed to the quaking aspen. Now that's awesome.

Troll through Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter to find ideas on how to be awesome in your classroom. Come up with ideas, or have the kids come up with them. Then come back and tell us how it went.

Stop being boring.

Be awesome instead.