Whole Class Meeting Area

This year one of the main things that I wanted to change about my classroom layout was to have my Smart Board be a part of my whole group meeting area. However, because of various set components of the room, such as lockers, electricity and computer installations in the floor, and the mounted projector, I was not able to make that happen this year. When I wanted the whole class to gather around the Smart Board for modelling writing or to watch a video, some students were sitting on the floor while others were at desks, and it was not the same feeling as when we had whole group activities at the carpet.

In my new classroom I already requested from my director to leave space in front of the Smart Board for a whole class meeting area before putting in the laptop hook-ups, and she said that I will be able to decide where I want them. I am lucky that Debbie Diller gave me so many ideas in Spaces & Places on how to plan with a step by step process of which components to start with so that I can get it right the first time since once certain components are installed, I will not be able to change my mind.

The Smart Board is on the floor plans as being in the front and center of my classroom, so I am hoping that it will work out to have a small table/computer stand off to the side, a white board on the other side, and a carpet in front. That way I would have flexibility with whole class meetings. I could easily model writing and create anchor charts. Students would all have clear visibility with close proximity. I am very excited about the possibilities of my classroom layout working for me in terms of being able to utilize technology to the best advantage. Ideally, I will also be able to get a document camera to have by my computer to further enhance instruction.

One area that I was concerned about was the students not having accessibility to anchor charts done electronically. I was trying to think of a way to have them at their fingertips even when they are not on the Smart Board. This year for part of the year we had a drive on the network where I could put documents that my students could access. However, part way through the year this stopped working. Franki at A Year of Reading recently started a conversation about SmartBoards and reading and writing workshops. I noticed that one of the commenters, Monica, mentioned having a classroom blog where she puts a lot of information that she used to put on chart paper. This would be perfect because my students have laptop access and this could be the perfect solution. This also opens up possibilities for students and parents who have Internet access at home.

Recently I have seen other teachers' classroom blogs such as Stacey at Two Writing Teachers' blog. I had also wanted my students to start blogging, so the classroom blog could serve many more purposes than just a place to store anchor chart/whole class discussion information. I will have to get familiar with Scribd to be able to post Office documents. I noticed that is what Stacey uses a lot. I have also heard of Google Docs, but I am not sure how that works either. At least I know there is a way to make it possible and I have the summer to figure it out!

I have always loved floor plans and organizing. Since my classroom will not be ready until right before school I will have fun mapping out plans on paper over the summer.