The end of the year is almost here and we are enjoying our lessons in the lab. Grade 3's returned to their blogs in Kidblog in the past two weeks. One of the classes made some polite and encouraging comments on Sunridge School's blogs. It's all part of the digital literacy learning experience. Sunridge Primary is a neighboring school and their teacher is part of our local tech teachers' support group. Having contact with other tech teachers in the area gives me the courage to take risks and try out new things.
The next week we had a discussion about culture. What is it? They wrote a blog post in their personal blog about how they celebrate weddings or funerals. During the discussion we agreed that respect for others and their culture are very important.
Grade 1's continued their practice with keyboard skills and typed captions for photos on a template. They are making such great progress.
This week we're doing something completely different. The grade threes are being introduced to photo editing. Through another of my tech teacher contacts I came across this editing kit from Oakdome.com. The purpose of teaching the students to edit photos is for project work. In Grade 4 we will be doing more project work in Social Sciences and we need as many multimedia skills as possible.
Grade 2's are doing a sequencing lesson using a template to explain what they do first, next, then and last. They can choose to explain the sequence for one of the following processes: Make a sandwich, make a bed or brush their teeth. This exercise takes careful thought and planning to cover all the steps in the right sequence.
I love the time of term when the formal assessments are complete and we have the opportunity to try new things and experiment with tools. I'm finding that the more I expect the children to do the more they manage. Using tech as a tool is the best place to be as a teacher. I love my job.
