Class Notes

It's been a busy week in the computer lab!

• Beth's class watched amazing Animal Diaries from the Australia Zoo! We learned about koalas, turtles, and tigers!  We practiced our mousing skills and hand-eye coordination by helping Blue play hide-and-go-seek with some friendly ghosts on NickJr.com.  
• Katie's and Keri's classes continued learning about peripheral devices: input devices, output devices, and storage devices.  We also played Plants vs. Zombies to practice our mouse skills!  
• Betsy's and Kim's classes started an Online Scavenger Hunt, and learned how to search for answers on the Internet! We also learned about the hardware inside a computer, and even got to touch and feel some motherboards, hard drives, floppy disks, and CPUs!  Today we are continuing our keyboarding lessons, adding 6 keys to our typing repertoire.  
• Middle school classes learned about the hardware inside the computer.  We identified them both on-screen and in a real computer used here at Community School. Middle schoolers had their first Computer Lab quiz - many did very well!  We started an Online Scavenger Hunt to hone our research skills, and discussed the importance of using credible sources. This lesson will continue into next week, when we will discuss verifying information and fact checking.  We will also begin discussions of how to cite our sources.  

Imagine Whirled Peace

This morning Pat led the entire school in a fun Art event!  Student-made pinwheels were displayed on the playground fence, and all our elementary students joined Kim in singing our brand-new "The Big One song".  We had a great time, and talked about what it means to bring peace to our world.

Look for our students' amazing pinwheels next time you visit our campus!

Awesome Animal Videos from Australia Zoo

Check out the amazing Animal Diaries from the Australia Zoo!  These are short, fun videos that teach interesting facts about tigers, koalas, crocodiles, and many other incredible animals!

Class Notes

As of today I have had class with each class here at Community School at least once.  It was wonderful meeting each and every student, and I appreciate their enthusiasm and hard work!

Here's a quick review of what we did in our first week of classes: 

• Beth's Class learned what the Internet is.  Then we practiced our skills (mousing, following directions) playing games at SesameStreet.org.
• Keri's and Katie's classes played review games, and learned some basic computer terminology (CAPS LOCK, monitor, etc.).
• Kim's and Betsy's classes have had two classes this week.  We did a fun review game (in which the classes won $1 million!) and started keyboarding.  Ask them about their score in Typer Shark (found on Yahoo! Games)! 
• The middle school classes played a fun review game, and started making posters to share their computer know-how with the younger students!  Seminar students will edit and display their posters this week! 

This has been a great first week.  I look forward to many more weeks filled with learning! 

Meet the Teacher

Hi!  I'm Karen, and I'm the new technology teacher here at Community School.  I'm super excited to get to know everybody!  I would like to thank every single teacher and student for giving me a huge, warm welcome this week!

Here  are some topics I'm looking forward to covering this year:

• Proper keyboarding procedure/ergonomics
• What is the Internet and how does it work? 
• What's inside the computer
• Multimedia presentations
• Using the Internet for research
• Communications technology 
• Web 2.0 Tools
• Robotics

Keep checking back here for more updates! 

Welcome to the 2010 School Year!

Welcome to the Community School Technology Blog!  This is the place to get up-to-date information on what we're doing in our technology classes at Community School.  The 2010-2011 school year starts September 7.  Starting next week, watch for regular posts from students and myself regarding our goals, ideas, projects, lessons and successes.   We are excited to share our experiences with you!

Here's to a great year of learning!