Day two of the new semester has gone very well so far. We are now into the training new students new tricks stage. Yes, that is a metaphor. Anyway, Today we focus on teaching them the "Do It Now" strategy or the daily keyboarding warm-ups, Setting up a "technology" folder, and starting the first project.
The "Do It Now" strategy is a time saver. It is what the students do everyday when they enter the classroom. In our business technology classes that activity is keyboarding. The keyboarding program we use is All the Right Type version 3. This is a very user friendly software that 12-14 year olds have very little issues with it. It is also very easy to set up - it takes about 30 minutes but is simple.
Students are using network logins, and they are able to access their desktop at multiple computers in the school. This means that they may need to have a place to save their projects from multiple classes. For our class we are calling it the "Tech" Folder. This is short for technology. Students will be able to recognize that anything in the folder is stuff used in business technology class. To create this type of folder, on a MAC computer, you go to the "Finder" menu bar. "Finder" can be found by looking at the dock and selecting the face icon, or by clicking on the desktop screen. Under "Finder" menu bar, go to File --> New Folder. This will give you an untitled folder on your desktop. You can click slowly on this icon twice to change the name from "Untitled Folder" to "Tech".
The project is ready to be started at this point. The first project for the new semester is an informational letter. This letter is in block style, and tells the teacher information about each student. The project is started by showing the students an example of what the letter should look like and what can be included in the letter. Then a screen cast is shown, which visually depicts exactly how to create the letter in block format, as well as goes over the assignment sheet and rubric. This has been a greatly debated way of presenting material, so I won't rehash the pros and cons however it was questioned in a prior post. The screen cast software we use is Snapz Pro X. This is a very user friendly software. This screen cast is shown on each student's computers individually - via a software called Apple Remote Desktop. It is a very useful spying/sharing software. The nice thing in this class is that the students can access the screen cast video at anytime. Students also have a hard copy of the assignment sheet to follow along with.
It worked really well in all the classes, and I would recommend using screen casts often in a technology class.
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