StM Computer Lab Blog

For Earth Day, 2nd Grade discussed why they love the earth and things that we can do to help the earth. Each student then created original artwork using KidPix and these were added to the PlanetFesto ribbon along with their ideas of what they could do to help the earth. After this was completed, 2nd Grade used the PBS site, Eeko World which is designed to help children between the ages of 6 and 9 learn about the important role they can play in taking care of the earth.

The students continued to work on their typing skills using the Dance Mat Typing site. They will continue to use this site in 3rd Grade. 2nd Grade also practiced their Money Skills on various web sites, created a Mother’s Day Wordle which I hope made it home, practiced writing paragraphs in Word and played a variety of educational games to end the year including trying out Jumpstart 3rd Grade!

Next year, these students will participate in the Monster Project as well as continuing to learn about Internet Safety, Microsoft Office Products and Keyboarding.

4th Grade finished off the 2008/2009 year by completing their Keyboarding Boot Camp and finish the last two Voices of the World Projects. The goal of Keyboarding Boot Camp was to improve keyboarding technique which will in turn improve keyboarding speed. The average increase in speed during the 12 class session was 60% with an average typing speed of 20wpm. All but two of the 4th grade students met or exceeded their goal for the class. Keyboarding instruction will continue in 5th Grade and beyond.

The April Voices of the World Project was all about the planets. Each 4th grader drawing a planet (or the sun) and then recorded themselves saying their planet’s name. This project included Pluto even though Pluto is not considered a planet any more. 4th Grade also visited some web sites about the planets to see what each planet looks like and read some facts about the planets and used an online image editor called SUMO Paint to create the planet pictures.

May’s task was a celebration of the two years of the Voices of the World project. Each school was to say in their own language: Happy Anniversary, Two years of Voices of the World, Congratulations all.

Finally, 4th Grade took an End of Year Survey about the projects and activities they did in the computer lab during the year. As you can see from the results, the favorite activity for the year was the Tongue Twisters. If you haven’t watched and listened to this one you really should.

Coming in as the least favorite project or activity for 4th Grade was Keyboarding Boot Camp. Interestingly though, the majority of the 4th Graders hope to learn how to type better in 5th Grade.

The votes for the Most Useful Project or Activity were split between many projects and activities with the Computer Parts & Internet Safety activities slightly edging out others.

I look forward to having this class in 5th Grade and look forward to seeing how fast some of them will be typing by the time the enter Middle School!

5th Grade completed their work on the Time Zone Experiences project. You can see what each 5th Grader completed on our Time Zone Experiences page. 5th Grade also completed the Month by Month portion of the Time Zone Experience project and here is a slideshow of their work:

Once the time & month portions of this project were complete, each 5th grader also answered a series of questions reflecting on the Time Zone Experiences project.

The end of the year included some keyboarding lessons for those finished with other work. Keyboarding is a major part of 6th Grade so those that didn’t have keyboarding time this year will get it in 6th Grade. Touch typing using correct technique is a skill that will be useful not only during Middle School but will be invaluable in High School and beyond. I would encourage your children to practice their keyboarding skills over the summer as we would like them to type at least 30 WPM by the end of 6th Grade. Check the Summer Ideas page for links to keyboarding sites but practice does not have to be actual keyboarding sites. Keyboarding skills can improve while IMing or playing games online or emailing, etc. as long as the correct technique is used each and every time any typing is done. Take some time to watch your child as they type and encourage them to properly position their hands and to use the correct fingers for typing. It’s much easier to learn to do this correctly then to have to unlearn bad habits.

5th Grade also completed an End of Year Survey about the projects and activities they did in the computer lab during the year. As you can see from the results, the favorite activity for the year was World Math Day. 5th Grade really enjoyed the online math activities that we did this year. If you child would like to keep up with their math facts during the summer, they can visit Tutpup and Arcademic Skill Builders and complete against others from around the world.

While some of the students rated the month portion of the Time Zone Experiences project as their favorite activity, the least favorite activity was by far the time portion of the Time Zone Experiences project. This was a tough project with a lot of new skills. I am proud of all of the students for finishing the work and hope that they learned something in the process.

The majority of the 5th Grade felt that the World Math Day activity was the most useful to them.

The final question on the survey was What do you hope to learn in computers in 6th Grade? The majority of the students hoped to improve their keyboarding skills in 6th Grade.

I am looking forward to the 2009/2010 with this class. We will be spending time on keyboarding and improving our knowledge of Microsoft Word as well as learning more about Internet Safety and much, much more.

6th Grade completed their 12 class Keyboarding Boot Camp with a class average typing speed of 28.5 WPM and an average speed increase of 21%. All but two of the students increased their typing speed during the 12 class session. Touch typing using correct technique is a skill that will be useful not only during Middle School but will be invaluable in High School and beyond. I would encourage your children to practice their keyboarding skills over the summer. Check the Summer Ideas page for links to keyboarding sites but practice does not have to be actual keyboarding sites. Keyboarding skills can improve while IMing or playing games online or emailing, etc. as long as the correct technique is used each and every time any typing is done. Take some time to watch your child as they type and encourage them to properly position their hands and to use the correct fingers for typing. It’s much easier to learn to do this correctly then to have to unlearn bad habits.

For Earth Day, 6th Grade watched and then discussed the presentation, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. As a follow-up to this presentation, each student created original artwork and then created a ribbon piece on the PlanetFesto ribbon to celebrate the reasons they love the earth and to commit to doing something to help perserve the earth.

6th Grade also spent some time correcting errors in three poems about Spell Checkers. Often we all rely too much on the spell check feature in Microsoft Word and these poems point out that this tool will not catch every error you make in something you write. Try these yourself? Can you find all the errors?

6th Grade also wrapped up the A Room With a View Project with pictures and reflections added for April and May. Each student took a picture around the campus in May and posted that to the timeline on the project. Have your child show you which picture they took!

6th Grade also completed How To Survive Middle School brochures for 5th Grade using Microsoft Word. These were allowed to be humorous or serious but were supposed to be truthful and not derogatory to the teachers or the 6th Graders. Each student printed two copies of their brochure – one that they kept and one that was given to one of the 5th Graders. The students seemed to enjoy making these however I believe the point of helping the 5th Graders may have gotten lost. I hope that when school starts that this class truly does help the new 6th Grade class to survive and thrive in Middle School.

The final task for 6th Grade was to fill out a survey about the projects and activities they completed this year during computer class. As you can see the brochure project was the most favorite project this year. For your Information, ARWAV is the A Room With a View Project.

Christmas Around the World followed by the 12 class Keyboarding Boot Camp were the least favorites this year, however, more students felt that the Keyboarding Boot Camp was the most useful project or activity they did this year than disliked it.

The Most Useful Project or Activity was the Keyboarding Boot Camp according to the survey, however, many other projects/activities received votes too:

I look forward to next year in the Computer Lab where we will continue to improve our typing speeds, learn more about Microsoft Office and participate in more collaborative projects.

The end of the year was busy and productive for 7th Grade. I hope that they learned a lot this year in computers and will continue to practice their keyboarding skills over the summer. Take some time to watch your 7th Grader when they are using the computer to see if they’re using the correct technique when they are typing – be it gaming, IMing or whatever. Encourage them to always use correct techniques and this will become second nature to them. As an incentive, if the class is typing at a speed of 40WPM or higher with good technique there will not be a need for specific keyboarding classes next year!

For Earth Day, 7th Grade watched and then discussed the presentation, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. As a follow-up to this presentation, each 7th Grade student created original artwork and then created a ribbon piece on the PlanetFesto ribbon to celebrate the reasons they love the earth and to commit to doing something to help perserve the earth.

7th Grade also viewed the 8th Grade Think Before You Post presentations and voted for their favorites in 3 different categories. The winning 8th Grade students were presented with awards at their Graduation Breakfast. 7th Grade also spent some time correcting errors in three poems about Spell Checkers. Often we all rely too much on the spell check feature in Microsoft Word and these poems point out that this tool will not catch every error you make in something you write. Try these yourself? Can you find all the errors?

The last project completed by 7th Grade was a careers project. This began with the 7th Grade running their own virtual business using Coolmath’s Lemonade Stand Game and tracking their results. We then discussed running a business and their ideas about future careers. They then used the online tool Drive of Your Life to identify career areas that might interest them based on answers to a series of questions. This site is based in Indiana so some of the salary information isn’t correct for California but it does give the students ideas about how salaries of different jobs relate and it’s a fun way to explore careers. Using Drive of Your Life they were required to explore at least 6 possible careers that had to include at least three which required 4 years or more of college plus one that required at least some education or training after high school plus at least one that wasn’t on their recommended list. As they completed this drive they completed some activities using Word to keep track of the careers they were choosing and what their choices meant. After they had completed Drive of Your Life, each student created a single slide in PowerPoint with the career of their choice. They recorded information about this career including: Education Required, Salary Expectations, Working Conditions, What you actually do on the job and Why they chose that career. These were then combined into one presentation:

It may seem rather early to think about careers in 7th Grade since they are only 13 years old but their grades, attitudes, work ethic, etc. in 8th Grade will have a major impact on the choices they will have for high school and that can impact where they will be able to go to college.  Even though most of the 7th Graders will probably end up changing their minds about their careers more than once before they complete college, it’s definitely not too early to start thinking about what they need to do in school to prepare themselves for whatever career they eventually choose.

The last thing that 7th Grade did for the year was to fill out a survey about the projects and activities they completed this year during computer class and the things that they hope to learn next year. As you can see from the results below, Keyboarding Boot Camp was not a popular activity (DoYL is Drive of Your Life), however at least some of the students (who did vote for it as their least favorite) realized that it was one of the most useful activities they did this year and some even requested that they learn to type better next year!

What were the requests for next year? Here’s a sampling of what was requested:

• I would like to learn to be a faster, more accurate typer.
• I would like to learn how to type faster.
• What I would like to learn in computers next year is how to type perfectly with no mistakes.
• I would like to learn how to make a website.
• Less typing and more computer safety.
• Designing video games or programming stuff and how to build a computer.
• Making videos would be interesting.

It was a pleasure teaching this year’s graduating 8th Grade class. They are all creative, wonderful students who will do great things in high school and beyond. They were very busy at the end of the school year with their End of Year project which resulted in the DVD they all received at the Graduation Breakfast. I hope that each of you has had a chance to watch this beyond the excerpts shown at the breakfast.

Prior to the End of Year Project, all 8th graders spent one day taking a series of timed typing tests and creating Excel spreadsheet to calculate their average typing speed. Many of this year’s 8th grade class loved Mavis Beacon and would spend time working in it every chance they got and this showed in some of the average speeds. For any 8th grader who isn’t already typing at least 40 wpm, I would highly encourage some keyboarding practice before they begin high school.

Each 8th grade student also viewed all of the Think Before You Post presentations and voted for their favorites in 3 different categories. The awards for these were given out at the Graduation Breakfast and congratulations again to the winners!

8th Grade also spent some time correcting errors in three poems about Spell Checkers. Often we all rely too much on the spell check feature in Microsoft Word and these poems point out that this tool will not catch every error you make in something you write. Try these yourself? Can you find all the errors?

For Earth Day, 8th Grade watched the discussed the presentation, The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. As a follow-up to this presentation, each 8th Grade student created a ribbon piece on the PlanetFesto ribbon to celebrate the reasons they love the earth and to commit to doing something to help perserve the earth. Some of the 8th Grade students created original artwork for their ribbon piece while others used one of the stock photos available for this project.

Last but not least, 8th Grade added to the Social Studies wiki with their Wordles and analyses of Presidential Inaugural Speeches.

7th Grade just completed a 12-class Keyboarding Boot Camp. The goal of these classes was to improve keyboarding technique which will in turn improve keyboarding speed. The average increase in speed during the 12 class session was 17.52%. Some 7th Graders have learned extremely bad keyboarding habits and it is a struggle to correct these. Grading for these classes was based on correct technique and not on speed so it was a challenge for those in the class who have bad habits ingrained. I would encourage you to encourage your child to practice keyboarding at home even though these series of lessons are complete. As with anything, the more you practice, the better you get. Your child will only have to type more as they continue with their education and the better they are at touch-typing, the easier this will be. Here are some keyboarding lesson sites they could use at home if you do not have specific keyboarding software on your computer:

• TypingWeb.com – Lessons, Graphs to track progress, typing games. This site requires registration and can be ad free for a $5 one-time donation. You can customize the look of your background and some other features.
• GoodTyping.com – 27 lessons. This site requires registration.
• FreeTypingGame.net – This site has lessons, games & speed tests. We often use this site in class to test speed.
• PowerTyping – Simple typing lessons where you can type to music to encourage rhythmic typing. Records your WPM on each lesson and assigns a grade.
• Sense-Lang – A simple site with lessons starting with the home row. This site also allows you to paste text from anywhere and practice typing using that text. This is a nice feature since it practices real typing rather than just random words or letter combinations.
• NimbleFingers – This site has online typing tests and a typing program you can download called Word Wacker. This is a free to try program.
• E-Learning For Kids - May be a little young for most middle schoolers but it is a fun animated course.
• Dance Mat Typing – Fun Characters and songs to introduce Touch Typing for children 7-11 years old from the BBC. This might be a little young for most middle schoolers but it has fun characters. No speed feedback until all lessons are completed.

As part of these lessons, 7th Grade played various keyboarding games at the end of each class. They enjoyed some of these and may like to play these at home to practice their keyboarding skills:

• Axis of Evil
• Cup Stacking
• Type Me
• Typing of Ghosts
• Martian City Defender
• Typing Monster
• Typing Terror
• TypeRacer

7th Grade also participated in World Math Day in the Computer Lab on March 3rd. World Math Day is an International event with students from around the world competing against one another in mental math games to try to set a world record for the most correct math answers in a 2 day period – 2 days because the event ran during the time that it was March 4, 2009 anywhere in the world. 7th Grade answered 3,841 questions correctly during World Math Day and each 7th Grader received a participation certificate from this event. Here are just a few statistics from World Math Day:

• 204 Countries represented
• 12,647 Cities/Towns participating
• 38,058 Schools participating
• 1,952,879 Students participating
• 452,682,682 Questions correctly answered

Last but not least, the 7th Grade Altered Snowflakes and Poetry presentations are now shared on the Travel Scrapbook on our wiki. Check these out when you get a chance.

6th Grade completed their Christmas Around The World presentations and has shared them online. Just as movies are awarded Academy Awards, 6th Grade voted and awarded the best of their Christmas Around The World Presentations.

The A Room With a View Project continues with pictures and reflections added for February and March. In addition, 6th Grade spent some time looking at some of the other school’s A Room With a View pages and completing a questionnaire about what they reviewed. Here are the A Room With a View pages they visited:

• Mrs. Schuler’s 2nd Grade Class at Enterprise Elementary in Chapman, Kansas (this one can load slowly and at times hangs certain browsers)
• St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus Regional Catholic School in Glens Falls, New York
• Ms. Knight’s Livewires Waikato, New Zealand
• Mr. Greenburg’s 3rd Grade Class in Bridgeport, CT
• Abanskya School 3 in Krasnoyarsk Territory, Aban, Russia (Some of the 6th Graders commented on this blog)
• Ms. Kruel’s 4th Grade Class
• Mrs. Jahay’s 4th Grade Class at Anthony Elementary School in Anthony, KS (Pictures are available by clicking on the word September)

6th Grade participated in World Math Day in the Computer Lab on March 4th. World Math Day is an International event with students from around the world competing against one another in mental math games to try to set a world record for the most correct math answers in a 2 day period – 2 days because the event ran during the time that it was March 4, 2009 anywhere in the world. 6th Grade answered 3,501 questions correctly during World Math Day and each 6th Grader received a participation certificate from this event. Here are just a few statistics from World Math Day:

• 204 Countries represented
• 12,647 Cities/Towns participating
• 38,058 Schools participating
• 1,952,879 Students participating
• 452,682,682 Questions correctly answered

6th Grade is currently finishing up a 12-class Keyboarding Boot Camp. The goal of these classes is to improve keyboarding technique which will in turn improve keyboarding speed. Grading for these classes is based on correct technique and not on speed. I would encourage you to encourage your child to practice keyboarding at home even after these series of lessons are complete. As with anything, the more you practice, the better you get. Here are some keyboarding lesson sites they could use at home if you do not have specific keyboarding software on your computer:

• TypingWeb.com – Lessons, Graphs to track progress, typing games. This site requires registration and can be ad free for a $5 one-time donation. You can customize the look of your background and some other features.
• GoodTyping.com – 27 lessons. This site requires registration.
• FreeTypingGame.net – This site has lessons, games & speed tests. We often use this site in class to test speed.
• PowerTyping – Simple typing lessons where you can type to music to encourage rhythmic typing. Records your WPM on each lesson and assigns a grade.
• Sense-Lang – A simple site with lessons starting with the home row. This site also allows you to paste text from anywhere and practice typing using that text. This is a nice feature since it practices real typing rather than just random words or letter combinations.
• NimbleFingers – This site has online typing tests and a typing program you can download called Word Wacker. This is a free to try program.
• E-Learning For Kids - May be a little young for most middle schoolers but it is a fun animated course.
• Dance Mat Typing – Fun Characters and songs to introduce Touch Typing for children 7-11 years old from the BBC. This might be a little young for most middle schoolers but it has fun characters. No speed feedback until all lessons are completed.

4th Grade completed their Snow Cinquains and altered snowflakes and these are now shared on the Travel Scrapbook on our wiki. I hope you will take a minute to check these out. They did a great job with the snowflakes and their poetry.

4th Grade also completed the February and March Voices of the World activities. February’s activity was to illustrate and say the months of the year and March’s activity was to illustrate the various locations of the schools participating and say the name of the state and/or country. These are now shared on our Voices of the World page on our wiki. If you haven’t, I would encourage you to visit the Voices of the World Wiki and check out all of the voices participating in this project – it really is amazing!

4th Grade is currently in the middle of a 12 Class Keyboarding Boot Camp. This involves taking a timed test at the beginning of class, completing keyboarding lessons in Mavis Beacon and playing some typing games. These classes are meant to teach proper technique and not to concentrate too much on speed. If your child memorizes the keyboard and learns the correct technique for keyboarding, speed will come. I would encourage you to encourage your child to practice keyboarding at home. As with anything, the more you practice, the better you get. Here are some keyboarding lesson sites they could use at home:

• TypingWeb.com – Lessons, Graphs to track progress, typing games. This site requires registration and can be ad free for a $5 one-time donation. You can customize the look of your background and some other features.
• GoodTyping.com – 27 lessons. This site requires registration.
• FreeTypingGame.net – This site has lessons, games & speed tests. We often use this site in class to test speed.
• PowerTyping – Simple typing lessons where you can type to music to encourage rhythmic typing. Records your WPM on each lesson and assigns a grade.
• Sense-Lang – A simple site with lessons starting with the home row. This site also allows you to paste text from anywhere and practice typing using that text. This is a nice feature since it practices real typing rather than just random words or letter combinations.
• NimbleFingers – This site has online typing tests and a typing program you can download called Word Wacker. This is a free to try program.
• E-Learning For Kids - A fun animated course.
• Dance Mat Typing – Fun Characters and songs to introduce Touch Typing for children 7-11 years old from the BBC.

February once again brought Winter Wonderland activities for 2nd Grade. They created and recorded a Virtual Valentine and completed a Things I Love activity. The Things I Love activity gave 2nd Grade the opportunity to reinforce searching for and adding clipart to PowerPoint presentations and they also learned how to narrate a slide. All of the completed Winter Wonderland activities are shared on their Winter Wonderland page. If you haven’t seen these, you really should take a minute to check them out.

One of the activities that all classes were encouraged to do in March was World Math Day. This is an annual event with students from around the world competing against one another in mental math games to try to set a world record for the most correct math answers in a 2 day period – 2 days because the event ran during the time that it was March 4, 2009 anywhere in the world. 2nd Grade was not in the computer lab either day we could have competed at school but they practiced in the lab and were encouraged to try to participate at home. Two of the students actually did and added 383 correct math answers to the world record. Here are just a few statistics from World Math Day:

• 204 Countries represented
• 12,647 Cities/Towns participating
• 38,058 Schools participating
• 1,952,879 Students participating
• 452,682,682 Questions correctly answered

2nd Grade worked on their keyboarding skills by completing Level 1 of Dance Mat Typing. They also wrote and illustrated a short story about what would happen or what they would do if they found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. For this story, they used Wordpad and drew the illustration using the built in drawing tools in Wordpad. These have been printed and sent home. I hope you had an opportunity to see them. 2nd Grade also spent time using the educational program, Jumpstart 2nd Grade.