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!