March
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
To all my students,
We have been working on our keyboarding skills for the past several months. I have a free typing program for you to use while we are out of school. Please practice two days a week for 20 minutes.
Thanks,
Mrs. Wicke
http://www.typingclub.com/
First Grade
Students
The students were
introduced to the Stickybear Typing Program several weeks ago. They have been
learning about the keyboard, correct hand position, and how the typing program
works. The Stickybear Typing program allows users to sharpen typing skills and
achieve keyboard mastery. Stickybear Keypress, a program within Stickybear
Typing, allows typing practice from the simplest drills in home key position to
complex exercises that require the full keyboard. A good typing program
provides immediate feedback for incorrect keypresses and allows a student to
progress automatically through levels as each is mastered. Each of the
program's 30 levels introduces the student to the keys covered in the lesson,
and then offers practice using them. The lower half of the screen displays the
keyboard; as keys are highlighted one at a time, the student must press the corresponding
key on the computer's keyboard. A correct keypress prints the letter at the top
of the screen. Incorrect keypresses make a low "bloop" sound, and the
letter doesn't appear. At the end of each two screens of typing practice, the
student gets a progress report which shows the starting level; current level,
number of words typed per minute, and number of errors. The students will be
concentrating on the home row keys until Easter break. I encourage the
students to practice these keyboarding skills at home using any type of program
or any of the free programs that are available on-line. I have placed a link on
my blog to the typing club which is a free on-line program. http://www.kidztype.com/
Second Grade
The students
have been working in the Kid Works Program. They know the components of the
writing portion of the program and know to how to access the Edit Menu and use
the Copy and Paste buttons. They know where the Home, End and Arrow Keys are on
the keyboard. Students have just started their Grade School Memories Journal.
The journal will consist of three typed sentences and a drawing to go along
with the sentences. The sentences are created by the students. They have to
type about three current events that happened each month at school and a
drawing to go along with the sentences using both drawing and sticker book
tools. The students have completed their journal entries through November. The journals will be printed in booklet form
and they will take them home at the end of the school year.
Third Grade
The students
continue to learn about the tools in Microsoft Word. They know where to find
the Spelling and Grammar tool and how to spell check a document. They know how
to retrieve some documents from one drive and save them in another drive.
Students know how to change font, font size, font color, bold and center. They
have been working with inserting clipart and manipulating it into their
document by making choices of sending it behind or in front of text using the
wrap text tool. The students have worked with the rotate button, re-coloring,
and positioning of images. They have been introduced to WordArt which is a
decorative text that can be added to a Word document. On the ribbon, they will
be working in the font, paragraph and styles groupings. Each week they will be
given an assignment to format using some of these commands. They have been working with the many tabs,
ribbons and menus in Microsoft Word and some of the same word processing tools
are used in Power Point. I will be introducing the students to Power Point at
the end of the month.
Fourth Grade
The students are
still working on developing their keyboarding skills with continued practice in
Ultra Key Typing. Ultra Key builds good typing skills, speed and accuracy
through structured lessons. The students will learn about record keeping and
will be recording their typing scores. I also have a free typing program listed
on my blog that students can use at home for extra practice. The students have been introduced to Microsoft
Excel and completed a bowling spreadsheet.
They will do the same lesson in Google Sheets.
Fifth Grade
The students are
working in Microsoft Word. There are
many tools to learn in Microsoft Word. Students were introduced to tables. The students have learned how to insert a
header, create and customize a table, work with the ruler within the custom
table, select different cells, insert clipart, bullets, symbols, and type with
different fonts, sizes and change direction of the font. Students will also be
able to view under the Tables Tool the Quick Table templates of Microsoft Word.
By learning how to use the various tools in word processing, these skills will
enable the students to be able to use the computer more efficiently in doing
their assignments and various projects throughout their classroom curriculum. Fifth
grade ends the year with a state project which is done in the classroom and
technology lab. Fifth grade will be assigned their state before Easter. They will be introduced to the many tools used
to create a custom brochure, format three columns, insert pictures into text
boxes, and work with many different bullets and symbols. They will work independently on their three
column state brochure. When completed and printed they will present it in
mid-May to the entire school.
The students are
working in the UltraKey typing program and will continue working with this
program to improve their typing skills until the end of the school year. They
are encouraged to spend some time at home practicing their typing skills so in
preparation of their daily use next year with the Chromebooks. I have placed a
link on my blog to the typing club which is a free on-line program.
March – Focus
Strand - SLE – Active faith-filled Catholics who share the teachings of Jesus
with others.
Common
Sense Media Bulletin Board outside the Computer Lab
Please take a
minute and read what is going on in Cyberspace. There are so many things
changing on a daily basis. Please talk to your children about Facebook. There
are 1.71 billion monthly active users on Facebook. There are approximately 7.5
million kids under the age of 13 on Facebook. Facebook isn't supposed to be
used by children under 13.
Common
Sense Media
A great website - commonsensemedia.org
“Their mission is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by
providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they
need to thrive in a world of media and technology.” Please take a minute to
look at their site.
Why
Do We Need A Technology Lab?
1. A technology
teacher provides a structured curriculum with complete and specific
instructions in computer skills that are taught in a lab environment. This
enables the students to become more confident in their technology skills and it
improves technology use in the classroom. It validates the importance of the
subject being taught.
2. In a lab,
students have the opportunity for hands on experience to learn about new
applications and review past lessons. This is a great advantage to students so
they can become more confident in their technology skills.
3. Technology
labs free classroom teachers so they can focus on their goals and not loose
valuable instruction time teaching computer skills.
4. Structure,
consistency, and repetition build skills each year whether it is a new
application, documents, presentations, or understanding and increasing their
time and accuracy in mastering keyboarding.
5. The
importance of the technology lab offers student support, skills, and the
knowledge they need to use these skills beyond the classroom.