Don't forget to check out the computer lab Gallery to see samples of new work! You can get to it by clicking the Gallery tab at the top of this page or by clicking HERE!
Recently added work includes 2nd Grade Parts of a Computer and 4th Grade Robots!
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We have had an awesome first few weeks of school in the computer lab! Willard South is a packed house this year with over 460 PK-4th grade students using the lab! Our lab has 25 student stations and thankfully administration has kept the numbers in each class low enough that every student in every class gets to have their own computer when they come to the lab! Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship are very important at Willard South. I want to make sure the kids know how to stay safe online and be nice to others online - even when they are not at school. We start out each school year with a reminder of who in our world is a "Don't Know" - or a stranger - with my favorite safety girl Safe Side Super Chick in The Safe Side Stranger Safety. This video is the perfect segway to The Safe Side Internet Safety where we talk about the fact that there are also strangers online. This year the topic of stranger safety hit a little closer to home with the abduction of Hailey Owens last year not too far from our own school boundaries. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: (http://www.missingkids.com/)
After spending time with Safe Side Super Chick we visited our Safety Zone page that has several activities from http://www.netsmartzkids.org/. Currently the 3rd and 4th graders are working on earning their own digital passports by completing the six sections of Digital Passport which is brought to us by Common Sense Media - an excellent resource for parents on safe websites, games movies and more! Digital Passport also talks about not only staying safe online - but treating others kind online by being a good digital citizen.
Of course, just like everyone else, our students are starting to acquire quite a list of different usernames and passwords for different sites. I keep a special private, password protected (which seems ironic) page on my website for my students to access all their usernames and passwords - or the format of the usernames and passwords - to help them remember what theirs is! But still, a few reminders never hurt....Last week my 3rd and 4th graders made animated .gif files on the site ABCya.com! They did such a good job and were so creative I wanted to showcase their work on their grade level computer lab blogs without parents and teachers having to individually click on each animation file. After a little research I discovered it is so easy!
1. Create a Powerpoint as you normally would, uploading a file to each slide. 2. In the Transition Tab, adjust the transition of each slide so that it does not depend on a Mouse Click to go to the next slide - but rather by an amount of time. You can adjust the seconds! 3. File - Save As - Windows Media Video (WMV file type)! You are set! You will see the ppt/video saving at the bottom of Powerpoint. Choose where you wish to save it. Then upload it to your blog or website! Easy! Enjoy - Have Fun & STAY SAFE!!! These are some Computer "House-Keeping" Items that I emailed to the staff in my elementary today, but I thought I'd share with everyone because these tips can help keep you up and running smoothly!
1. Shut down your computer completely every Friday when you go home. *This helps to eliminate "cruft" that accumulates over days of opening several different programs which pile up "temporary files, disk caches, page files, open file descriptors, pipes, sockets, zombie processes, memory leaks, etc. etc. etc" as mentioned in this article. A lot of that goes away when you shut down and you can start up FRESH (and faster) Monday morning! Ahhhhh 2. Clear Browsing Data in Chrome often. *If you are beginning to work in Chrome a lot, or have more than one person signing in and out of Google on the same station, get into a habit of clearing out your Chrome browser data weekly or at least every other week. Choose option "From the Beginning of Time" like in this helpful link https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95582?p=settings_clear_browsing_data&rd=1#. 3. UNCHECK unnecessary boxes during updates. *If you or a student find yourself in the middle of a program update, be on the lookout for a box to UNCHECK that is actually put there to trick you into downloading something totally different than what you intend. For example during an Adobe Flash update you see a box that is already check marked to download McAfee Registry. (Like the pic below.) We don't need McAfee because our Tech Dept already has protection in place on our computers, and downloading unnecessary programs slows our computers down and sometimes makes them act crazy. Simply UNCHECK the box and proceed. From your desktop press the Windows key on your keyboard and start typing the name of any program, for example: Internet Explorer. As soon as you see Internet Explorer selected press Enter and Internet Explorer will automatically open. All without ever touching your mouse! I know it's a hard habit to break, but most people do not realize how much time they waste by using their computer mouse. Several actions can be done on your computer without ever taking your hands off the keyboard, which in turn saves you much time and effort. In the computer lab, I like to start the younger kids (Pre-K & K) out doing everything with the mouse at first. It is a good fine motor skill, and it's also good practice for them to master the art of double-clicking! But as they get older, I begin to steer them away from the mouse as I show them some keyboard shortcuts. Over the next few weeks I will share some "anti-mouse" keyboard shortcuts on this blog! It takes some self discipline at first, but maybe you can break that hard mouse habit too. In the long run you will be glad you did! Shortcut #1 (*Select), Copy, Paste & Cut - We'll start out easy with one most people know and already use - Copy & Paste. After you have selected (*see below for selecting text without your mouse) the text you want to copy, simply press CTRL>C on your keyboard to "copy" your text. Then, if you want to paste it somewhere else do that by pressing CTRL>V. And finally, make your life easier with CTRL>X for cutting....less used but just as efficient! *When selecting your text, get your cursor where you want it by using your keyboard arrows instead of clicking! Then hold down SHIFT and move your arrows to select the text you want! It's that easy! Remember when you are copying and pasting information to give credit to those you got it from! As always, have fun and stay safe online! Interesting research from Common Sense Media about children's media use in America. This report is based on the results of a large-scale, nationally representative survey,.....
Caps lock is a computer lab teacher's nightmare! One reason is it is poor grammar to type in all caps, but another reason is we are using technology in schools so much now, that signing in with a username and password is often required. The #1 reason I see people (students and adults) enter an incorrect username or password is because their caps lock is accidentally on. I've started something new in computer lab this year. When my students sit down at their computer I ask, "Caps Lock?" And they reply "OFF!" I say "Num Lock?" They say, "ON!" I finish with, "Scroll Lock?" They reply, "OFF!" And then we begin our lesson. This just helps them remember that it is their responsibility to check their work station, sit up straight, face their computer and make sure their keyboard is ready. Check out this cute reminder video from Good Computer Kids called Typing in ALL CAPS! Tomorrow starts Digital Citizenship week which reminded me of a wonderful poster I found last year on one of my favorite blogs technologyrocksseriously.com. I have this THINK poster hanging outside the computer lab at Willard South. I know that every student will not always stop to think of all these things every time they make a post online, but if it keeps one kid from saying something hurtful to another online then it's done it's job. In the media today we are faced with yet another horrible result of cyberbullying. As technology increases and electronic devices become the main way our students are learning these days, our responsibilty as parents and educators increases when it comes to teaching our kids how to behave online. It starts with us. What would Facebook look like if we all followed these THINK rules? At Willard South we are adopting a program called Digital Passport that our 3rd and 4th graders will begin tomorrow in the computer lab to help us all remember netiquette - or the rules for behaving a certain way on the internet. When the kids leave Willard South and go on to Intermediate, I hope they remember these lessons and know the importance of having fun but doing their part to stay safe online. |
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Last modified 7/18/16 |