GENERAL INFORMATION

SLATS (Saint Luke Apprentice Technology Specialists) Program Information and Application

This site is updated weekly with a report of what each grade level learns and completes in Computer Class. After about a month the information will move to another page but you will still be able to view it by clicking on the link for that time above the most recent week.

2006-2007 School Year
To see the lessons from previous time periods click one of the groups below:

WEEK OF OCTOBER 9-13th
All grades came to the lab and were assigned seats for the year. All usernames and passwords were fixed and tried. Lab procedures and rules were reviewed. Basic equipment names were reviewed with the lower grades. Grades 4-8 reviewed the acceptable user policy for the use of technology equipment at Saint Luke School. We spent time explaining this policy and students asked questions about it. Grading procedures were explained to grade 4 as this is the first year those students will receive technology grades on their report card. The first grade learned to use CTRL, ALT, and DELETE to log on to the network.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 16-20th
Kindergarten - Learned what the monitor and the windows desktop were. They also learned to click the shortcut on the desktop for kidpix to start the program. Once in kidpix they learned how to use the line tool and the oval tool. They learned how to change the size of the line and make the line with a pencil, chalk, crayon, or spray paint. They also learned how to change the color of the lines and the ovals.

First and Second Grade - Had a kidpix review. We reviewed the small, medium, and large options for the line, chalk, crayon, and paint tool. We reviewed the wacky brush textures and the fill tool options. We practiced making ovals for next week when we make self portraits. The second grade also reviewed the stamps and how to change the stamp sets.

Third grade - continued to make new username and passwords because this is the first year that they will log in any computer with their own username and password. The students each came up to the server and created the password that they wanted to use. The rest of the class used the keyboard skins as they practiced keyboarding with JumpStart Typing.

Fourth Grade - Keyboarding review - We went over the home row (with the skins on so they couldn't peak) as well as the letters G,H,F,R,T,E. We practiced typing exercises with these letters and then did some words. The hardest word of the day was ALASKA. They also learned how to change their desktop backgrounds by special request.

Fifth Grade - Microsoft Word Review - Insert ClipArt, Put the picture behind the text. Cut, copy and paste text using the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs sentence. Find/Replace text in a document. Use and edit the header and the footer. Change The format of a Font using the format font menu and the Format Paragraph menu and settings.

Sixth Grade - Corrected and formatted their Internet Saftey posters that they made at the end of last year. These posters were about Cyberbullying, ScreenName Dangers, Personal website dangers, predators, personal information. All of these issues were discussed at the end of the year last year as we followed the I-Safe curriculum.

7th Grade - Learned how to insert a Hyperlink in a Document. They also learned how to use citationmachine.net to site an internet source then copy that citation and put it into a Word document. On their own they sited 3 websites in Word and hyperlinked the site to the document.

8th Grade - (Same as 6th grade) The 8th grade did the same I-Safe program at the end of last year.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 23-27th

Kindergarten - Reviewed skills learned last week. Learned to use the rectangle tool. Learned to use the stamp tool and make the stamps small, medium or large. They learned how to change the stamp set, flip the stamp around and put the stamps together. We looked at the "thrills and chill" stamp set to get ready to make a scary picture next week.

1st and 2nd Grade - Made a self portrait in kid pix. They had to use the oval, wacky brush, stamps and fill tools to complete this. Click here to see 1st grade's work and here for 2nd's.

3rd Grade - Continued to make usernames and passwords. The rest of the class used JumpStart typing with the keyboard skins on.

4th Grade - Continued their keyboard review. We added the letters I and R. With the skins on they typed some exercises using all of the letters this year. At the end of the class we had a race to see which team could finish typing "Alaska is great" Each person on the team typed the words then tapped the person next to them so that they could type it. This process repeated until the whole team finished typing the words. The winning team finished first!

5th Grade - PowerPoint Review - We reviewed how to insert a new slide, format the background, add a transition, add an entrance animation, format the placeholder, add a shadow or 3D effect, and insert the arrow and oval tools for special effects. They will use this review to start a powerpoint project for their science class on the planets next week.

6th Grade - They had a short period due to Terra Nova Testing this week. We watched a short movie on "cookies" (computer cookies....not chocolate chips) and "piracy" and discussed the safety, dangers and ethics of these topics.

7th Grade - Microsoft Word Review. Downloaded "The Quick Brown Fox" file from the school website to their computer desktop. They then oped this file and were asked to do the following on their own. (In case anyone forgot one of the students that was positive of how to do a particular task came up to the Interactive Whiteboard to demonstrate for the rest of the class) Format each instance of a particular word in a paragraph to superscript, green color, with a green dotted line under it. Once they did this once they used the format painter to do the rest of the paragraph. They had to change one of the paragraphs to double space with a one inch indent on both the left and the right and justify the text. They had to change one paragraph so that it formed two columns with a vertical line in between. Create a header and align their name in it to the right. Take one paragraph and add a 3D border to it, and change the background to gray. They had to insert a drop cap in the first paragraph and put a picture behind the text in that paragraph too. The last task they had was to put a picture "square" in the text of the second paragraph. The students passed this review with flying colors and are ready to move on.

8th Grade - The eighth grade became actors this week and got their picture taken as they made goofy faces. We took at least 5 pictures of each of them and uploaded them on the server. They opened Windows Movie Maker and learned how to import the pictures into it. They were allowed to import the pictures of anyone in their class. We will continue working on this in the next few weeks to create a movie with video effects, transitions, sound, voice overs, text and titles. Stay tuned!

WEEK OF OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 3rd

2nd, 3rd and 6th grade did not have technology class this week due to conferences.

Kindergarten and 1st grade- Create a spooky house in kidpix. Each student decorated their own spooky house using various tools in kidpix. See the results here for K and here for 1st.

4th Grade - Went over the QWERTY row on the keyboard and practiced typing those letters into WORD. The students printed the exercise when they were finished to take it home to practice the keys. They are really doing a great job! Keep up the good work.

5th Grade - Worked on a science project in PowerPoint. They saved the project to the server and to their USB drives so they can work on it at home.

7th Grade - Learned to create and compose an email to one of our teachers. They copied the address from the faculty page of the web site to the lab email account. They learned how to attach a file to an email and had to send the computer teacher an email with an attachment.

8th Grade - Continued working in Movie Maker on thier first movie. They started to download some music from http://www.sounddogs.com to use in the movie. They seem to be having fun making this movie. We'll see how they come out soon!

Week of November 6th - 10th

The 5th and 7th grade did not have technology class this week.

Kindergarten - Try the wacky brush in kidpix. The students were instructed to try each of the brushes. They had a good time experimenting with them. At the end of the class we watched the haunted houses that they created last week.

1st Grade - Reviewed the wacky brush and learned some tricks to make them do special things by holding down the shift key. They tried to write their name with some of the wacky brushes. At the end of the class we watched their self-portrait show and their haunted house show that they created in the previous two weeks.

2nd Grade - Talked about Word Processors and what they do. We briefly talked about Microsoft and Bill Gates. They opened a file to work on in Microsoft Word from the server. We briefly discussed where the server was and how the file got to their computer. We "told the computer what we wanted to change" by selecting text in the document and saying, "Hey Mr. Computer this is what I want to change" as the text was selected. They formatted the text with Bold, Italic, Underline and the Center align options. They even made the font larger. When they were finished the documents were saved on the server under thier own names and the program was closed. This is the original file they opened.

3rd Grade - The 3rd grade worked on some practice of the home row keys. They did this in Microsoft Word and then did some formatting to the text.

4th Grade - The 4th Grade is doing a great job learning the keys on the keyboard. They are doing all the work with the skins on in the lab so that they can't see the keys at all. Many of them are racing through the exercises! This week they did more practice with the QWERTY row keys again. They also did exercises with the basic home row keys and G and H. Most of them are able to reach for the keys from the home row and then return back to it with ease! Get ready 4th grade, the bottom row is coming next week. Try to practice at home!

6th Grade - They did the same thing that the 7th grade did last week with e-mail. They all had to copy and paste the computer teachers e-mail address from the web site into the e-mail, attach a file to the e-mail and then send it. Some of them have already done this and did it so quickly that they had to wait for the others that had never done it before. They played a cool little free game from the internet called Line Rider while waiting for the others. This free game doesn't look like much but it really makes you think! You can play it on line or download it to your own computer.

8th Grade - The 8th grade solved a puzzle this week that was originally created by Einstein. They were given 15 clues and puzzle pieces of 5 different people that lived in 5 different houses, ate 5 kinds of fruit, drank 5 different drinks, and owned 5 different pets. They had to take each clue and try to put a person, house, vegetable, drink or pet on the grid. The first 3 clues were easy but then it took more than one clue to get an answer. They had to solve the case of the vanishing video. To solve it they had to find out which of the 5 people owned a fish. After really concentrating in their group most of them came up with the correct solution. They were then asked why they think that they had to do this puzzle. The students knew that they were doing what an internet predator could do with the small pieces of information that many people give out on the internet. Small bits of information can put together a puzzle of who you are, where you live and your likes and dislikes. This puzzle can be found here.

Week of November 13th - 17th

Check back next week to see what our students are doing in Computer Class!

After a month or two these weekly updates will be archived in the pages below so you can always see what the students at SLS are learning about computers. Click the month to see lessons from previous time periods.

FILES TO USE IN CLASS

Keyboarding Lesson 1
What's Inside a Floppy Disk
Make a Group List In Outlook Express
Definitions

We now have KEYBOARD SKINS in the computer lab. That means "no more peeking!!" We are really trying to learn to use the keys with the correct fingers on the keyboard. We have been reviewing the HOME ROW keys and we have started working on the QWERTY row. The best way to master good keyboarding is to PRACTICE! Try to use the correct fingers and the Home Row keys whenever you type! A good sentence to practice is "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs". This sentence contains every letter of the alphabet! Try to do it without looking at your keys when you are at home. To really learn to keyboard the students must practice at home because once a week in computer class will not give them good keyboarding skills. It will give them the knowledge of how to keyboard properly but without practice at home the correct skills will not be acquired.

At the end of the keyboarding lessons we have a race to type a sentence first. We divide the class in two teams and off they go typing the sentence one student at a time. The first student types it then the second, third, etc. The team that finishes first wins! We reinforce the skills with Jump Start typing. The students enjoy using this program because you play games and type at the same time.