When I purchased the Asus Eee PC, it was on a whim. I hadn’t really thought about how I was going to use it, but I knew that it would have many uses in the classroom. But how?

For those of you who don’t know, the Eee PC is a small, very portable subnotebook computer. It has just a 7-inch screen and weighs just 2 pounds. It uses a version of Linux for it’s operating system and come pre-installed with many useful programs.
I had many ideas on how to use this computer in my classroom. My students, who marvelled at is tiny size and thought it was perfect for 10-year-old, tiny hands, had many ideas too. I found three major uses for this computer so far.

Math enrichment: Doing a math lesson on data collection, I had a student use the the OpenOffice program Calc (like Microsoft Excel). I could have turned on the computers in the back of the classroom, but the student wouldn’t have been to follow along in the lesson. With the Eee PC, she was able to record data. She checked her answers with the computer’s calculations when she found the median and mean. The computer also comes with a math game. It’s kind of silly, but a great thing to allow that kid who comes in during recess and wants to practice math facts.

Writing: I have a student who hates writing. I can never read a word she says, but she can tell the best stories. I gave her the laptop to use during writing, and she completed the best writing assignment ever.

Podcasting: The built in microphone is adequate for recording. We just started doing a Nevada History podcast. There are limitations using the software provided with the computer, so I will be adding Ubuntu to make this process easier.
This list will get bigger, but I have actually seen the need to get more of these machines. There are some limitations. I wish I had the ability to have wifi in the classroom. Adding the more robust operating system will give more functionality to our new tool. It has been fun, though. There is just something about them that gets my students excited to use them. Isn’t that what it’s all about?