Congratulations on your graduation, eighth grade class of 2010! You should be very proud of your work. Your yearbook came out awesome! I was impressed with your dedication, and if I ever needed a reboot, I could depend on your graphic displays of kindness. While I am “megahertz” by your departure, remember to console me by taking a tremendous byte out of life!
Wishing you much success @ your new high school.
Grade four has been working hard learning the basics of making a PowerPoint presentation. This high-powered software program from Microsoft is used to create an electronic slide show. Students were asked to showcase a “product” of their choice through a series of slides by collecting data and information. They learned PowerPoint basics such as adding new slides, deleting slides, using textboxes, formatting text, inserting clipart, creating animations and running the slide show. The students did a fantastic job expressing their ideas and delivering their presentations.
Computer Lab — A reminder to the school community – adopt good security practices. Never give your passwords to anyone else – not even your friends. Strong passwords help protect you, your computer, your files and your privacy.
That being said, and in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, file this under Computer Lab humor:
During a recent password audit at the Bank of Ireland it was found that Paddy O’Toole was using the following password:“MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofyBerlin When asked why he had such a long password he replied: “I was told it had to be at least 8 characters long and include one capital!”
This week students in grade five are researching and writing mini-presidential biographies. Using AutoShapes in Microsoft Word these biographies will be placed inside an Oval shape in keeping with the informal name for the President’s office in the West Wing of the White House. Ever since the presidency of Richard Nixon, the term Oval Office has even been used to refer to the president himself as in “the order came directly from the Oval Office.” Since the White House Oval Office is a working office, public visitors to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are not allowed access. However, by taking advantage of technology, students in grade five will take a “virtual tour” of the office using the Internet.
‘‘Scientists discover the world that exists; engineers create the world that never was.” Almost everything you use – from your iPod, to your bike helmet to your toothbrush – was created by an engineer. Engineers are experts at visualizing what people could use to improve their lives. Do you think you would be good at designing and creating things on a computer that others could use? Grade six recently had just such an assignment. Design a cell phone for senior citizens. With the help of www.edheads.org students researched, designed, tested and got results. Some of the things that had to be taken into consideration were battery life, uses per day, button size, weight, size and price. If client needs were met you were a profitable engineer, if not you were engineered back to the computer drawing board!
The seventh grade students of SBCA, like most students today, have a demanding schedule. Yet the interest and eagerness these students demonstrated in learning about http://www.freerice.com was both inspiring and gratifying. Freerice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Program. Its goal of ending world hunger is made possible by the sponsors who donate a grain of rice for every correct answer. And although your child may become “smarter, may improve their speaking, writing, thinking, grades, and job performance…”I believe they enjoyed www.freerice.com even more so because they wanted to do “good.”
Microsoft Paint is a simple software program that can be used to teach students the fundamentals of painting software. Many sophisticated graphics software applications (such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop) use the same basic principles that can be learned using MS Paint. The children in grades 3A and 3B not only learned how to use the menu and tool bar, they did so while following some very specific directions to complete a room inside a Pilgrim House.
Learning to integrate language arts with technology, students in grade eight are using PowerPoint to create a book trailer. This animated book report is based on a novel of the student’s own choosing and includes the following learning objectives:
As students become more familiar with PowerPoint, new skills are applied and practiced.
October 24, 2009
After doing an awesome job on their “Cinquain Silhouettes,” sixth graders are now busy discovering some of the lesser known learning tools buried within Microsoft Word. Do you know what a pangram is or what you get when you type =rand()? Try it yourself, open a blank Microsoft Word document, enter =rand() and press the “enter” key. A pangram, a sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet, will suddenly appear!
After quickly inserting sample text, students then went on to use the Find and Replace option. This feature helps save many hours of time when it comes to making numerous changes on a multi-paged document. The students also mastered the Auto Correction feature, a system for correcting common typing errors, converting abbreviations to their full spelling and adjusting capitalization.
Bring on the research papers …they will be ready!!
In this project based lesson, students reviewed word processing material covered in grade one. The students used Microsoft Word and reviewed basic features: bold, italics, underlying, font and font size. Students keyed a poem entitled “Look at Me” by Ida Pardue.
“Look At Me” Look at me! It isn’t showing You can’t see it, But I am growing!Watching your child grow and learn a new computer skill is an awesome thing!
