Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Internet Safety

A focus of ours for the last week has been internet safety. Some of the topics that all classes have been focusing on are:
- What kind of information is safe to share.
- What is a Privacy Policy? We actually looked at the Webkinz privacy policy for an example.
- If someone is saying mean things to you on the computer, what should you do?
- Spam, cookies, and junk mail.

Here are the sites that the classes have visited:
Grades 2 -3 : www.pbskids.org/license/ ~ Web License
Grade 4: www.media-awareness.ca ~ Virtual Pigsty

Ask your kids about what they have learned and how to be safe online!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Cruisin' Along

We find ourselves in the middle of October thinking, what happened to September?? Well, it flew by kind of like the snowflakes that I see falling to the ground. REALLY?? Luckily, there is never a snow day in the Computer Lab. Here is a breakdown of what we have been working on:

Grade 2 -3
Independence on the computer is something that we work on each class period in the lab with things such as turning the computer on, logging in, finding the icons in the dock or on the desktop, opening new documents and saving them to the desktop. All of the students are doing amazingly well, especially the second grade classes as this independence is more of an adjustment for them.
Some of the projects that we have been working in second grade on are: All About Me, Cloudy with a Chance of . . . and What I like to do in the computer lab. All About Me and What I like to do in the Computer Lab will be available to come home after conferences. Cloudy with a Chance of. . . is a class project, we read the story and each student made their own page for their class book about what type of food they would like to see raining from the sky. Look for it in your child's classroom during your conference time.
Projects that the third graders are working hard on are: Learning all of the parts of the computer and whether they are input or output, All About Me and Biography Poems.

Grade 4 and 5
No slacking going on here! Fourth graders have been hard at work with Biography Cards. With this project the students learned how to make and manipulate a table on a Pages Document. They also learned how to add their picture to the table from Photoshop. The directions where given to them in written form and they had to complete this task on their own. They passed with flying colors!! Next up, we will be piggy backing on the table making skills along with collaborating with Mrs. Basten's religion curriculum by making Saint Trading Cards.
Fifth grade students have been hard at work learning technology definitions, exploring the insides of computer towers and completing an online study about the earliest computer and how they have progressed into the computers that we use today. Quiz them on the name of the first computer!!

Middle School
Last but certainly not least, the Middle School Students are constantly working on something. Here is a run down of what has been happening with them.
- You are the Star Presentations by Grade 6 & 7
- I Think Presentations by Grade 8
- All About Me using Comic Life by Grade 8
- Comic Strips by Grade 6, 7, & 8 - look for these on the wall outside the lab
- Jo Cool Jo Fool by all Middle School Students. This is an online activity that takes the students through different web sites asking for various kinds of information. They have to figure out if they are going to be "Jo Cool" or "Jo Fool".
- Online keyboarding lessons.

As always, please stop by or call anytime you have questions or concerns.
Have a blessed MEA Break!!