MARCH
First Grade Students
The students will be introduced to the Stickybear Typing Program. They will be 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.
Second Grade
The students have completed working with all the tools in the KidWorks Program. They have started their Grade School Memories Journal. The journal will consist of three typed sentences and a drawing to go along with one of 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 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. Students will be drawing a picture in the Paint program. The picture will then be imported into Word using WordArt and from there they will be able to apply many different effects they have been introduced to within WordArt .
Fifth Grade
The students have just completed many of the UltraKey lessons in this 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. There will be many new tools introduced to the students in Microsoft Word. The students will learn how to create a table, set margins, move and type within a cell, choose effects, fonts and insert clipart. They will be working with documents that involve putting sentences in numerical order by clicking and dragging or using cut, copy and paste. They will learn how to set up a header for their documents, insert clipart and recolor the image. 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.
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 500 million registered users. There are approximately 7.5 million kids under 13 on Facebook. Facebook isn't supposed to be used by children under 13. This also applies to students under 13 who are not of age to make u-Tube videos.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.
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.
