USN Lower School Technology!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Welcome to the School Year 2009-2010

So I'm pretty sure we'll get into the habit of calling it "twenty-ten," and my question is this: When it gets to be the following year will those of us in the South be saying "twenty-leven" or will we revert to "two thousand eleven." Just asking!

Welcome to this promising school year. It's certainly been a lovely summer, and if yours has been as chaotic and packed-full as has mine, I'm betting you and yours are ready for a little structure to return to our lives.

I sure am.

I'll be glad to meet my 64 new Kindergartners and the 18 new students at other grade levels (mostly in grade 1, filling out the difference between the 64 maximum K kids and the 72 maximum at 1st grade), and to re-acquaint myself with those 1st through 4th graders I've worked with in the past. It always amazes me how much they all grow and change over the summer, and I'm excited to see those changes.

We'll be easing slowly into work at the early grade levels, first talking about respecting the equipment, as each machine is shared by at least 19 other students, then working in the newly remodelled UpToTen.com's Premium@School site in scaffolded lessons geared to helping the young master basic skills and fundamental concepts they'll be working with in their classrooms. In 2nd grade, well be very gently introducing touch-typing with Type to Learn, Jr., and then moving on to the BBC's Dancemat Typing. In 3rd grade, we up the ante to Type to Learn 3, and in fourth, we'll be working in Type to Learn 3 for only two weeks then moving right into Keyboarding for Kids, the online typing instruction program they'll be bringing textbooks home to facilitate daily keyboarding practice. Please do not feel that you need to purchase any of these products: We have purchased them at school for use at school! If you wish for your child to do more practice at home, there are myriad links in the Keyboarding topic of our school's Webliographer!

There will be more, much more, for all my students, and here is the place to watch for changes in content and focus. To get an idea of the flow, feel free to view past entries here, accessible from the sidebar to the right. Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing all of you and please don't be a stranger to the Lower School Technology for Learning Lab!!!

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