Author Biography: I am so very lucky to be a middle school technology teacher.

My students range from the 6th grade beginners to 8th grade television producers. Though Ive been teaching for over 20 years, and have used as much technology as I could find during those years, the computer lab was new to me. I had little to go on, but was given the freedom to create curriculum that is helpful, inexpensive, and fun for my students. With the rapid changes we are experiencing in technology these days, every day presents a new challenge. Who wouldnt love that? For more information or questions, please see my website: garrisondaily.weebly.com Activity Summary
What to teach beginners during a one-semester course by using a lot of Web 2.0 technology. Class or subject area: Beginning Computers Grade level(s): 6th Grade Specific learning objectives: Fluent Keyboarding Internet Safety Emailing Microsoft Office products Programming

Anniversary Book Project

5th

Teaching Tech to Beginners

On a Shoestring

By: Garrison Daily Creative Commons License: CC BY-NC-ND Author contact: msgarrisondaily@gmail.com

When I was handed the keys to the beautiful computer lab, there was little available for me to use as a springboard no curriculum, few programs, and little money. This meant that I had to put coursework together for sixth through eighth grades from Web 2.0 and inexpensive hardware. In addition, we all know that there are no real beginners in our age of technology. However, that doesnt mean that our students are coming to us with a good foundation on which to build their techno futures. My beginners are mostly sixth graders. They spend almost every waking moment of their days on one device or another. They are truly our digital natives. When I survey the new groups, I find that between 85 and 95% of them are on the Internet at home. That is 85-95% of some very low-income families. Technology has become an American staple. So, what do we teach children who could take us out in a video game or lead us to any music video in a mere nano-second? Plenty. My sixth grade classes are limited to just one semester, so I want to hit the most useful highlights while theyre with me. We focus on Internet Safety, email etiquette, keyboarding, and Microsoft Office programs. If time allows, they also dip their toes in the programming waters. Internet Safety First and foremost, I teach Internet Safety. The number of 11-year olds that are given full access to the web without the least bit of parental control is frightening. Now, I think our students truly are the cats pajamas, but they are kids. They honestly admit to breaking the family computer rules (if they have any) from time to time. Even in a home where parents may lurk over the screen, kids can always find those forbidden places on their friends computers. What we need to do, above all, is to show them how to navigate the net safely, not because we said so, but because they want to. I use a game called MISSING, published by WebWiseKids.org, as an example of how easily children can be led straight to the wrong people. Its message is powerful and surprising and the game itself is fun to play. The kids work in teams of three or four, enforcing collaboration skills, and their jobs rotate each day. My students access their Detectives Notebook online with Google forms, allowing me to monitor their answers as they play, make comments, and keep track of where they are. Of course, the best teaching is the discussion that comes out of the game and articles that we find in the news. Email Email is usually new to an eleven-year-old. Though some may already have it, the majority of them do not. Since my course is usually their first exposure to having an email account, email etiquette is discussed and reinforced throughout the semester, thanks to Gaggle.net, a wonderful email provider that is perfect for first-timers. Communications are limited to our school and anything suspicious is automatically detoured to me. I can decide whether to block it (which would lead to a serious

discussion with the student), or allow it to go on. Their filters look for language and content and they are most often spot-on with the blocking call. They also offer a social wall, chat, calendar, and Gaggle Tube (filtered YouTube). The storage is very limited in the free version, but it gets the job done. I have all of my own email forwarded to my other account to prevent my Gaggle account from getting maxed-out. All assignments are emailed to me with a proper subject line one of the most difficult lessons for them to learn, it seems. Keyboarding Even if a child has grown-up on a keyboard, that doesnt mean that she uses it efficiently. My beginners typically type below 12 wpm before learning to type without looking. There are a lot of products for sale out there, but I start my newbies out on typing-lessons.org (free), with an inexpensive, opaque, silicone cover . The blank keyboards that were on the market were beyond my budget, so when I came across clear covers, I asked for them in black and the company was good enough to oblige. The typing lessons focus on three or four letters at a time, which is easier for the beginner who isnt able to see the board. By the time they have completed the lessons, they are ready to do speed quizzes with regular paragraphs. Practicing with the covers becomes somewhat of a chore for children by the time they have completed the typing lessons, so once they finish those, I send them on to race each other in a closed school universe at TyperRacer.com. TypeRacer introduced the school version a few years ago. It really kicks up the repetitive practice, offers filtered content to teachers, and limits the racers to your own class. Lately, I have been paying them a percentage of their best scores in our school money, which they have to mentally calculate. Testing is around the corner, after all. Microsoft Office Microsoft Office is the most widely used suite of programs and would likely be the most helpful to a student in the future. To give them an introduction to these tools, I have created some simple lessons, which are just enough to get them started.

Word: They design a poster and write a friendly letter (below). Excel: This is a shopping list task, using Albertsons online, where students simply fill-in cells on a spreadsheet where the programming has already been done. The object of the game is to spend exactly $100. They can see the way the cells automatically function when they change the prices or quantities. Actual writing of function statements will come next year. PowerPoint: Being able to create a simple presentation on a topic of their choice is a good starting point for the rest of their academic careers. Our focus is on using the slides as a backdrop for the presentation, rather than as a mass of text. They are shown how to access the Google images that are free to use or share, import music from CDs, and create animations. Programming Scratch.mit.edu is a terrific intro to programming concepts and it is a free download from MIT. This drag and drop program allows the students to create proper syntax without having to remember elaborate codes. Using a sprite, or character, they can create animations or games and share them on the Scratch website. They even offer lesson plans, if you want to make a unit of it, or you can briefly introduce it and let them loose. The Plan The goal is to guide our students to exciting, efficient uses of computers. This drive-by course serves as an excellent way to get them started in the right direction, with a good foundation of the basics. For those who move on to other elective areas in the seventh and eighth grades, I can feel confident that I have, at the very least, given them the tools with which to do the simple tasks that will help them in their core classes. Free software is a staple in my more advanced classes, too. From Intermediate to Web Design and Television Journalism, programs that are available to us today, at no cost, manage to keep us up with the times without breaking the bank. Some favorites are Animoto, Prezi, Picnik (Google+), Aviary, SchoolTube, Weebly, and the always expanding Googles: Google Docs, Google Earth, Google Calendar, Google Sites, Gmail, and on and on. Technology changes so quickly. It would be impossible to keep our students current with costly, licensed software in todays economy.