Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

I can't believe it's already (almost) Thanksgiving!  I've been trying to cram as much as I possible into this week because I won't see the students again until December!

The 1st graders are taking a break from math practice and are getting creative on the computer!  This week we are making art with Doozla, an easy to use drawing program designed specifically for kids.  It allows students to use a variety of simple tools to create fun art on screen.  In addition to their pictures, the 1st graders wrote a sentence about their work, doing their best to use their typing skills outside of a typing program!

2nd grade continued to work on our MS Word formatting activity, and 3rd graders have been having a great time working with our 30 day free trial of Type To Learn 4.  Each student has their own account, which enables them to work at their own pace on the lesson and games for each level.  If we end up adopting this program school-wide, students will also be able to access their accounts from home!

In addition to their ongoing work familiarizing themselves with their LAUSD online student accounts, the 4th and 5th graders were given their first real PowerPoint project this week: Unsolved Mysteries.  Each student will choose a "mystery" to research -- I have given them a list -- and will create a presentation based on what they find.  This should be a lot of fun, and will really allow them to become comfortable using the many features of PowerPoint.  (Although they may do research at home, they will be given time to research in class.)

I'm getting excited about Computer Science Education Week -- December 9th-15th -- and have already pledged to participate in the Hour of Code with our students!  More details soon.  :-)



Happy Thanksgiving!

Trying New Things

We've got a bunch of new stuff going on in the Technology Lab this week.

We're getting close to settling on a comprehensive typing program for our school!  (And not a moment too soon -- the kids are going to be too good for Dance Mat Typing soon!)  During the month of November, two classrooms, six teachers, Carla, and I will be involved in a free trial of what looks to be the perfect typing program for us.  Stay tuned for more details.

The kindergarteners have been eying the laptops longingly all year, so I thought it was time to let them have a go.  :-)  Those who had "computer experience" were used to using a mouse, so it was fun for them to try using the track pad.  They visited the kindergarten area of abcya.com and played Alphabet BINGO.  This is a great game to help kids learn the letter sounds because you can select to either the "Letter Name" or "Letter Sound".  Most importantly, there is a "Repeat Letter" button.

2nd and 3rd graders started a two-week "formatting" activity in Microsoft Word.  This activity is great for becoming familiar with the features of Word, but also enables the kids to see that the computer does what THEY tell it to do.

4th and 5th graders continued to familiarize themselves with their LAUSD online student accounts.  Some of the teachers are more excited than the kids -- they can't wait to use Google Docs for collaborative projects!