Each week, our students in Grades K-8 visit the Media Center to learn about Technology. Kindergarten students begin the year learning how to control the mouse. Their tiny fingers must cover the entire mouse to be able to move it around and click on the left mouse button to make a selection. The students enjoy using a program called Tux Paint to draw, create and type letters.
One of the tools is a Magic Paintbrush, which is a lot of fun for the students to explore. The primary grades work hard at navigating the Internet. The students learn how to log on to the school laptops and use Google Chrome to browse the web. The students are still practicing controlling the mouse, and they like to visit “Starfall” or “ABCya.” These students also use an assigned iPad in their classroom. They enjoy educational apps that are teacher approved for school. Seesaw, PBS Kids, and Stack the States are some fun apps the students visit daily.
The 3rd grade students were introduced to Chromebooks this year and are learning about Google Docs and Google Slides. Grades 4-8 are assigned Chromebooks, and the students use them daily. The 4th Grade created an “All About Me” assignment, where they researched the meaning and origin of their name, created an Avatar, and even found out how many days old they are!
The students in Grades 5-8 produce many projects using the Chromebooks. A lot of emphasis is placed on how to safely use the Internet. They play Kahoot and Jeopardy labs in class as review games for rules and computer vocabulary. The 6th Grade class created a weather-related video using the green screen. They used an app called “Doink” to transform the green screen background to images, making it look like they were the weather person on TV!
The 7th graders created Halloween books using Google Slides, writing the story and designing the backgrounds! The students then recorded their own story using Audacity, a free software program that allows the students to record voices and sound. The 8th grade students created their own business, designed business cards, websites, and storefronts! After the marketing side of the business was created, the students made a commercial to promote their business.
The commercials were uploaded to Flip, a video sharing app. “The stories turned out fantastic! It was so great to hear their own voice reading their own stories,” beamed OMPH School’s Technology Teacher, Mrs. Schneider. “The students are exposed to many programs and apps to help them learn to express their own digital style,” Mrs. Schneider explained.