March
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
First Grade
Students
The
students were 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. 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 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.
Fifth Grade
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 Chrome books. 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.
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.