K-8 Computer Lab Teachers

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Permalink Reply by Diane Main on August 23, 2007 at 1:33am

Just wanted to chime in here . . . then go join Susan's group! I teach grades one through eight in a private TK-8 school with about 535 or so students. Since I don't teach the TKs and Ks, I have about 450 kids in my classes, total. Grades 1-5 come once a week, and grades 6-8 come twice a week.

I have my year plan from last year, but I need to shake it up a lot. That was my first year back in the lab setting after six years in the traditional classroom. I am starting with the new NETS-S from ISTE, and then focusing on certain apps I want to make sure I use, but in REAL integration projects involving the content-area teachers. We did this with varying levels of success last year, but in almost all cases, the project ideas and development came from us (my co-teacher and myself) and we had to bring the classroom teachers alongside us. This year, we want to start from their end, focusing on meeting their needs while also addressing our tech standards.

Apps I will use this year will include Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Firefox (for lots of research, finding images, and citing sources!), Google Earth, and hopefully Google Docs & Spreadsheets and some other Google Apps. We also have student e-mail through Gaggle.net for our students in grades 3-8. Features included with that are chat rooms, message boards, blogs, digital lockers, personal profiles, and of course e-mail.

We will start with online safety and etiquette too, and move into research and copyright/fair use. From there, I want everything else to be standards-driven true integration.

Am I the only one who encounters resistance at this stage? ;)

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Permalink Reply by Mayra Soto on September 7, 2007 at 10:49am

You can make an activity with Blogs. I have some but in spanish and English language but you can use the links.My themes are Global Warming,etc And you can be part of a e- pals group
http://sotoguzm.blogspot.com/
Post Cards Project
http://sotogmay.blogspot.com/
Rainforest
http://mayrasotocomputerclass.blogspot.com/
Samos Greece
http://sotogu.blogspot.com/

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 23, 2007 at 5:46pm

It's too bad tech teachers can't or don't collaborate with the classroom teacher to enrich the curriculum. From what you guys are saying it sounds like you are teaching "computers". Hopefully you have time to collaborate with the classroom teachers. Now that I've typed that it sounds negative, wasn't meant to be. :)

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on August 23, 2007 at 9:25pm

I don't necessarily see that. It depends on what they are doing with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Firefox etc. They could be doing work that ties in with their regular classroom projects. I'm teaching those things to meet NETs standards, but I'm also picking some key standards at each grade level in Math and LA to hit too.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 28, 2007 at 4:55pm

I glanced at your planning wiki and I too am impressed with the effort you took in planning for the year, Alice. I'm writing special ed gifted technology goals using NETS. I am really impressed with the quality of the standards and think any tech program centered around making kiddos technologically literate using these standards would be a stellar program. Have a good year, N.

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Permalink Reply by Dawn Joy on August 23, 2007 at 6:02pm

Hello,

I am also a new teacher and will be teaching technology for grades K-8 and also be the schools technology administrator. I am comfortable with integrating technology and working with the teachers, however, I am not sure how to start off the first week or so with all the different grades. I would love to have a catchy and interesting presentation about class and computer usage rules, but I am very limited with time. Does anyone have any ideas?

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on August 23, 2007 at 9:38pm

The intro thing I'm doing that I think is best is in my PP on rules, I'm using rebuses for the primary. Basically, I have two levels of intro, the 1-3 and the 4-6 module. Anyway, my planning is here: http://oakridgeedtech.wikispaces.com/ which I posted earlier, but I think I had a typo in the link, so this will work better. Free advice, worth every penny.

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Permalink Reply by Ann on August 28, 2007 at 1:14pm

Hi there. I love you wiki. Big wow! I'm always looking to find new ways to teach my K-8 kids. I have Type to Learn Jr. but love the Dance Mat Keyboard site. I'm going to have to take a look around. I'm at saintmichael.wikispaces.com and am going to put my KidPix plans at smsteacher.wikispaces.com/kidpix. I've just started, but feel free to take a look. I really haven't done much in the way of putting my lesson plans online, but this is just great.

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Permalink Reply by Jeremiah Olson on September 9, 2007 at 9:14am

Very impressive. I like the idea of a wiki for the teacher to aid in planning, wish lists, etc. I was wondering if anyone here uses classroom management technology in their lab. I downloaded a trial version of Synchroneyes that gives me the ability to administer quizzes and control student's screens. It's been hit or miss though.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Noack on August 28, 2007 at 4:42pm

Hi Jeremiah,

I am not to far from you, I teach in Dixon, IL.. I have six classes a day of 5/6th grade students for a trimester. So I see about 140 kids at a time.

This is my first year in a computer lab too, so it's all new to me, I have taught self-contained before, so I feel I have a good grasp of classroom management. Here are a few tips I am doing.

I put numbers on the back of students chairs instead of on the computers... That way if a CPU or monitor fails, I don't have to renumber it. (All student work is saved to the server, so it doesn't matter what computer they are on)

I had students put their name and login password on an index card, I pass them out by seat number and collect them by seat number. That way I can find individual ones easily. After a week I still have a couple kids that can't remember their password.

I have made a webpage using Google Pagemaker (www.mrnoack.com) I am going to use it to put files for students to download and then save to thier server folders. Also, using google docs and spreadsheets I can upload a file and make it a webpage, or save it is a PDF file. Very nice for forms or letters home.

When students save, I have them save files by thier name, what the file is, and the date, for example, "noack essay 8-07" That way if they lose it I can search for it easily and If I put all their work in one folder I don't have 25 copies of "Animal Essay".

As far as content goes... I am still working on that. It isn't going to be easy to integrate since my students might have any of three different language/math/science/ or social studies.... they are not on teams. I hope to pull together resources to teach students the history of the invention of the modern PC, How the internet works, Internet safety, and what I calll "computer mechanics" or how a computer works... I was able to get hands on a few old PCs and I am thinking about having students take them apart and putting them back together again..

We are fortunate to have Moodle and will be able to use a lot of Web 2.0 activities throughout the course.

Good luck and Let us know how you are doing.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on August 29, 2007 at 6:53pm

I haven't done this for a while but I got a couple of old desktop computers and we took them apart. The kids were fascinated, I actually still have the hermetically sealed hard drive which we pried open to ooows and ahs!

Have you ever seen this? http://www.intel.com/education/journey/ Back in the day Intel would send you a kit which included handouts, chips, wires and videos. I don't know if they still do that but the curriculum was wonderful. (might be dated now, I don't know)

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Permalink Reply by Ann on August 29, 2007 at 7:25pm

I love the Journey Inside the Computer. There was a kit in the office and I found another on eBay. The only problem is that my students started calling it "the show with those 80's kids". If you can find a kit on eBay, it does have neat lightbulbs, chips, a video tape, and teachers book. They had a lot of the clips and handouts on the web site the last time I visited.

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