It is the week before Thanksgiving and there is a plethora of turkey crafts lining the hallways. I decided to join in on the fun with a digital turkey project. Students started with an outline of a turkey body and a single feather created in Google Drawings. They had to copy and paste feathers and position them around the turkey body, experiment with layer ordering to move the feathers behind the turkey body, and select multiple objects to practice grouping in order to color in their turkeys. Finally, they were asked to add a word on each feather indicating something they are thankful for this year. Students had to change the font styles of their words and rotate the text boxes to fit on the feathers. That was a lot to do in a short amount of time, but they came up with some very cute turkeys. I've shared a few below.
0 Comments
Third graders explored object manipulation and Google Slides in this fun activity by Eric Curts. First we explored Google Slides and it's various navigation features and tools. Then students were tasked with designing their Jack-O-Lantern. They were given a choice of items that they could copy and paste to their Jack-O-Lantern using keyboard shortcuts, shown how they could search for objects on the web, or allowed to use drawing tools to create their own objects. They completed this project by writing a story about their finished Jack-O-Lantern. Shown below are samples of their finished slides. In many classes, not just in the lab, students will be creating digital content with the use of programs such as Google Docs, Drawing, Sheets, and Slides. All of this content is stored on their Google Drive. Since our school is equipped with Google Apps for Education, each student has access to Google Drive through their student account. Students will be taking an in-depth look the next two weeks at how Google Drive works.
First, we are spending some time to get organized - digitally that is. I've explained to the students that just like they use folders to keep up with their paper assignments - homework, papers that need to be signed, notes from their teachers, etc., they can create folders in Google Drive to keep track of the digital work that they create throughout the year. They should be able to quickly differentiate between an assignment they have started in science class from one they are working on in the lab, for example, by practicing good file naming conventions and storing files in an organized way in their Drive. In addition to creating folders, students will be creating content and learning how to move that content around within Google Drive to organize and find files effectively. Students will also create a folder to store their best work that they wish to preserve throughout the year -- sort of like a digital scrapbook. This is called their digital portfolio. Throughout the year students will be adding content to their digital portfolios. Parents, be sure to take a peek at your child's digital portfolio from time to time to see what new things they are creating! We are slowly starting to gain some momentum in the lab, although things won't truly get going until after Fall break. The lab was closed for classes during all of August while we administered state assessments. Following that, we had a couple of partial weeks due to the Labor Day holiday and weather closings. That means that this week was the first week for computer lab for some of my classes.
We have been talking about the rules and expectations in the lab, and our first focus has been on keyboarding. Each class has enrolled on Typing.com and I am able to track their progress throughout the year as they practice and improve. This week I am getting a baseline of each students' current typing speed and accuracy. I will be doing another assessment in December to track their improvement and a final one in the Spring. Each grade level is having a class competition to see which class improves the most. I will have a special treat for the winners! At this age, I am not looking for super fast typists, but my focus is on seeing some improvement over the year with the student using proper hand positioning on the keyboard. Keyboarding will only get easier with practice, practice, practice! Students can log in to Typing.com from any web browser at home to practice. The site contains both lessons and games to aid the student in their practice session. Fourth graders discovered the foundational parts of a spreadsheet while doing this fun pixel art project. They were tasked to create a piece of artwork by shading cells in a spreadsheet. First they learned how to resize rows and columns in the spreadsheet to make a square grid. When they completed their artwork, they created a new tab in their spreadsheet and made a color key of their art by recording the cell addresses and cell ranges for each color shown in their design. There were multiple ways to accomplish this, so students had to search for patterns in their design and develop a strategy for creating their color key. Then students shared their color key with another student to see if their peer would be able to recreate their artwork using their key as a map. The students had a lot of fun creating this project. Although we used Google Sheets to complete this project, the concepts apply to any spreadsheet program. Click below to see a few of their finished pieces.
Third graders created pizza artwork using Microsoft Paint. In addition to learning and working in an art program, they sharpened their mouse skills and practiced using keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste. Once they completed their artwork, they saved it and inserted it into either a Google Doc or Slide. They sized their image to fit the desired space and wrote a short story relating to pizza. The writing portion allowed them to practice their keyboarding as well as highlight their writing skills. Check out a few of the finished projects below.
|
About Mrs. Stephens
This is my second year working with kids in the technology lab and I absolutely love it! The world of technology is ever-changing and I love helping the kids learn and watching them adapt to new challenges. I view my lab as a place of discovery. I received my degree in Information Technology in 1997. Before becoming a technology aide, I spent 15 years working in the the areas of computer science, multimedia development, and graphic design. Archives
November 2017
Categories
All
|