Summer Session Week 3

B1-2 Technology:
We started keyboarding this week! Olders reviewed their skills from last year with Keyboard Climber while the youngers met in the "clubhouse" to explore keyboards and learn about which hands do which letters. In the beginning, we focus on two hands on the keyboard and work up to homerow fingers later in the year. In keeping with our family/house theme, we watched the Tumblebook story "Miss Malarkey Doesn't Live in Room 10" and then did some click and drag mouse practice with Castle Creator. After a discussion of files and folders, students found their folder and opened up a My Family Paint document to complete. It's tough to draw with a mouse, but they did a great job!

3-4 Technology:
Type to Learn keyboarding to start gave me time to take everyone's picture-we reviewed input and output devices as the pictures were uploaded and renamed. This week we discussed avatars and cyberspace. We talked about how cyberspace isn't make believe like Pandora or Neverland. Even though you may explore virtural worlds, they are made up of real people communicating and bad things can really happen-we have to use our Netsmartz! The students had a great time using an avatar editor to make avatars which we will use for voicethreads and other projects on the internet. We saved them and also made an avatar world in Paint and uploaded the images. We also discussed how in the real world robots can act like avatars controlled by people at computers to do things that humans might not be able to do. We used a National Geographic Map game to control a robot and explore an Egyptian tomb to find a mummy!