Before Thanksgiving Break

Well, I almost reached my goal of showcasing technology skills to all Kindergarten - 5th grade classrooms, 26 of them, before Thanksgiving break, but came 2 classes short.  Thank You so much to all of the classroom teachers that replied back to my email and set up a time with different technology activities and skills.  Hopefully I can catch all of the teachers next time I set up this endeavor, maybe between the start of the New Years and Valentine's Day.

Kindergarten classrooms focused on a couple online activities, but more importantly how to use the laptops, plug in the headphones, how to get to the Internet, and how to put them away.
Their online activities were:
http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?resource_type=16
http://www.abcya.com/

3rd Grade Keyboarding-WPM Sheet

The 3rd grade students have finished keyboarding.  They have learned all of the keys on the keyboard and have completed all 4 of their Words Per Minute (WPM) typing tests.  The students will be bringing home a HomeRow Champ certificate attached to a Handwriting Rate worksheet.  On the certificate, in the upper right hand corner, is each students best WPM score from the 4 typing tests they took throughout the school year.  The Handwriting Rate worksheet is something the students took at the beginning of the school year, with the goal of being able to type as many WPM as they could write before the end of the school year.  Most students equalled or surpassed this goal.

Another goal was for the students to be able to type 3+ WPM by the end of the school year as the 4th grade typing goal is 5 WPM and the 5th grade typing goal is 10 WPM.

If you feel your student(s) needs more practice to help them become better typers before the start of the 2011-2012 school year follow this web site and the online games listed at the bottom for more practice.

3rd Grade Internet Safety

The 3rd grade students have finished learning about Internet Safety through a FBI Scavenger Hunt full of web sites to answer questions related to a variety of Internet Safety web sites and information.  Internet Safety is something we talk to the students about within 3rd, 4th and 5th grade, not solely for school purposes but more important for the use of the Internet at home.  Please talk to your students about what they are learning in relationship to Internet Safety, and you might learn something new.  Below, they will be bringing these 2 sheets, filled with answers, home for you and your student(s) to go through and learn more about.  They will be bringing these home during the next week.

3rd Grade Art Class Integration

Mrs. Turnbull, Eason's Art Teacher, had her 3rd grade classes integrate technology into their Art experiences using a web site called KerPoof.  The student's came into the computer lab and used KerPoof to create a scene with 10 overlapping objects and 1 drawing of their own.  The scenes related to water/ocean and once the students were done they printed them to take and show Mrs. Turnbull.  The students had a wonderful time using KerPoof and they have been reminded that this is a web site they can use at home.
Parents if you want your students to have an account with KerPoof for uses at home please look through the web site and help your student(s) set one up.

3rd Grade Internet Safety

Oh yes, the 3rd grade students are going to take a brief break from Keyboarding (they are doing a wonderful job) and are going to learn some information about internet safety.  The 3rd grade students are going to be doing a FBI Scavenger Hunt full of web sites to answer questions related to a variety of Internet Safety web sites and information.  Internet Safety is something we talk to the students about within 3rd, 4th and 5th grade, not solely for school purposes but more important for the use of the Internet at home.  Please talk to your students about what they are learning in relationship to Internet Safety, and you might learn something new.  Check out the information they are going to be looking for:

3rd Grade Keyboarding

The 3rd grade students just finished their 2nd Words Per Minute (WPM) typing test.  They did a wonderful job and are more than halfway done with all of their lessons and learning all of the keys.  They have for sure mastered all of the home row keys, spacebar, return and delete keys and have mastered some reach keys and punctation keys.  Students can readily practice their typing at home, at the library, at a friend's house or anywhere they can get on the Internet.  Online Typing games are fun and easy to use if only for 10-15 minutes one time a week.  Some practice is better than no practice at all.

While they are learning to type they are also being introduced to some skill-based learning associated with Microsoft Word.
They currently have learned how to select/highlight a word, sentence and paragraph, how to bold, italicize and underline words and how to align left, align center and align right.  Practicing these at home can be a benefit as Microsoft Word on your personal computers might be a little bit different than Microsoft Word on the schools Apple Macintosh Computers.

3rd Grade Microsoft Word

The 3rd grade students have extensively used Microsoft Word as a typing program to practice their typing. I have now started to showcase some Microsoft Word toolbars and skills that the students can used within their school and home setting to better use and understand Microsoft Word.  This would include for example: making text bold, highlighting text, copying and pasting text, and centering text to name a few.  So far the students have learned how to select one word (double-click), how to select a paragraph (triple-click), and how to select a sentence (Cmd in Mac, Ctrl in Windows and click).

They will soon be learning how to Bold, Italicize and Underline words.  Please practice these tools and skills with your students at home or have them showcase these tools and skills to you if you are unsure how to use them.

3rd Grade Keyboarding

The 3rd grade students are busy keyboarding and typing in the computer lab. I try to provide different games to start the class for the first 10-15 minutes to keep them interested in typing and using the correct fingers on the keyboard. So far the students have mastered all 8 keys on the Home Row and the return, delete and space bar keys. They also have mastered some "reach" keys, which are the e, r, h, and o keys.

They all have completed 1 Words Per Minute (WPM) typing test and will be completing another WPM typing test before Winter Break. The students are reminded of 3 goals they need to accomplish before the end of the school year in regards to keyboarding and typing.

1) Type equal to or as many words as they can write by hand

2) Type at least 5 wpm

3) Type for accuracy

They are more than welcome to practice typing the lessons or practice typing using online typing games at home. This is not required but even doing it 1 time a week for 10 minutes is better than nothing at all. Both are located at: http://www.waukee.k12.ia.us/easonelementary/computers/third_grade_keyboarding.html

3rd grade keyboarding

The third grade students have been focusing their efforts after MAP testing on keyboarding. A majority of their curriculum is learning how to type properly, which allows these skills to be transferred to numerous activities in the future. So far the students have mastered the A, J, S, K, spacebar and return keys. They should be able to practice using these keys to type properly at home. Right now we really emphasize using the correct fingers as we know it is easy to use just a couple fingers on each hand since they have not been taught many keys yet. Really focus on them putting their hands on the home row and using the proper hand and fingers for the keys they have learned and will be learning. Thanks.

3rd-5th grade

The 3rd-5th grade students have been actively involved in the computer lab since the first day of school. We started the school year being reminded of and learning the expectations in the computer lab and then went right into a mini-project where each 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade student designed their name, to be cut out and posted around Mr. Morton's computer lab for the school year. Each grade level approached this differently.

3rd grade just used the basic font/text features of Microsoft Word to create their name. 4th grade could used the basic font/text features or could use WordArt in Microsoft Word to create their name. 5th grade could use the Microsoft Word basic font/text features or WordArt or could use a web site that creates logo.

The web site is called Flaming Text. It is a great web site to create logos for free, which I have used extensively for the Eason Web Site, and if allowed by your student(s) (I reminded them to ask permission first) he/she could show you how the web site works, which could then be a new web site for personal use at home or for business work to create logos.