No Teacher, Teacher!

30 minute Kindergarten classes worked through letter sounds and rhyming songs on Starfall.  More and more kids are used to touch screens.  We have to step back a little to keyboards and mice to move forward to communicating through and with a wider variety of technologies.  Fewer and fewer are struggling with picking up their mouse and moving it.

Next week, Kindergarten and First Grade will be learning the new help system.  No more, "Teacher, Teacher!"  In this room, we want students helping students as much as possible.

First graders should have come home with their first print out of the alphabet (complete with capital and lowercase letters).  Connecting the written word through pencils, tablets and keyboards are different experiences. One student could not believe that what he typed on his screen printed out across the room!

2nd-4th graders have new typing programs on their Symbaloo pages (TypingClub, DanceMat, and TypingWeb).  3rd and 4th graders are using TypingWeb that requires a username and password.  Those passwords will be available for parents during conferences.  Contact me if you would like them sooner.

1956 Selah Graduates Return

Original Poetry-I'm missing the library a little....

Getting Excited about Blogging!

I always use the inside-outside circle to encourage yakking and listening with each other because I can't listen to each one of their stories.  Hmmm....maybe when they start to blog I'll be able to communicate more on a personal level and see them as human beings! 

Week in Review

Kindergarten students are learning to log in and log out of our Kinder account in the computer labs.  We are using the Starfall website for learning letter names and sounds.  This website is pre-loaded onto our docks so students don't have to go too far to get to an activity appropriate for their dexterity level.  However, in the next two weeks, I anticipate teaching them to navigate through the RLE homepage to the Technology Resources page, students page and Kindergarten Symbaloo.  Symbaloo is a visual bookmarking page.  Try it out, it's free!

First Grade has been learning how to log in to our Easy CBM testing.  We worked through examples questions and how to answer them.  Teachers were noticing that students wanted to click and drag items when they should have been selecting radial dials.  We should have a more accurate view of what our students can do next year because lack of  "how" to take the test will not be a factor.  Students have also learned to navigate to their page on the Technology Resources page.

Second Grade has been working on Microsoft Word.  Students are learning how to: use keyboard shortcuts, click and drag to select, highlight, change font, color and size as well as look at zoom and the Print Layout view.  They are given a task, asked to print it then they can read eBooks or challenge their academic practice on the Technology Resources page.  Students will start TypingWeb next week.  They will have user names and passwords that can be used at school and home.

Third and Fourth Grade have both been practicing what 2nd grade is doing as well as how to save and retrieve documents from our student servers.  These skills allow students to learn how to use servers, saving and retrieving digital projects in our labs and homerooms.  This has proven to be harder for 3rd grade.  However, as society moves into the use of cloud servers like iCloud and Dropbox, it will put our students at an advantage to have this knowledge in their toolboxes.

Kindergarten 2nd Tech Session

Second class session in Kindergarten,  kids were asked to make Xs and Os.  I was checking on their comfortableness with using a mouse.  Several kids were asked to extend to playing tic-tac-toe.  While one student made gains just identifying that a click would make a mark on his screen, another drew a 3 dimensional object that I would have trouble doing without a model in front of me!