Los Perales Elementary

Thanks to the generous support from MEF and the LP PTA, Kindergarten through fifth grade students have the opportunity and resources to develop and refine their technology skills to facilitate 21st century learning and better prepare them to succeed in a technology-oriented society. 

 

Students attend the computer lab weekly, with Kindergarten through second grade receiving 30 minutes of instruction for the entire class, and third through fifth grades receiving 45 minutes of instruction for each half of the class. Students normally work on the desktop computers in the lab, but they may also use iPads and Chromebooks for certain projects. Students also use iPads (Kindegarten through second) and Chromebooks (third through fifth grades) in their classrooms.

 

All grades use a variety of online typing programs as well as Typing Club on the desktop computers to develop and improve keyboarding skills, with emphasis on good ergonomics, proper finger placement, and accuracy. In addition, Kindergarten students spend several lab periods learning how to use a mouse and improving their proficiency by doing variety of online mouse activities and computer projects.

 

Depending on grade level, students work on projects with Microsoft Office programs (Word, Publisher, Excel, and PowerPoint), Google apps (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.), and projects on other educational websites.  As students advance through the grades, the projects reinforce previously learned skills and increase in complexity as new aspects of the software programs are introduced.  In many cases, computer projects are aligned with the classroom curricula and are designed collaboratively with the classroom teachers. 

We devote several classes to Digital Citizenship instruction, which includes viewing educational videos and discussion of safe and responsible use of technology in the classroom and at home. The website, CommonSenseMedia.org provides videos and lessons which cover a wide variety of age appropriate topics by grade, and Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr. contain very helpful videos and follow up quizzes. Depending on the grade, topics may  include Internet safety, cyberbullying, cyber security, safe cell phone use, guidelines for emailing and texting, and safe advanced Internet searches. Third through fifth grades also work on collaborative projects that include researching an assigned topic and then creating a Seesaw video (third), Google Slide show (fourth), or public service announcement (PSA) with a green screen app and iMovie (fifth). to share with classmates.

Websites that have helpful information on these topics can be found at the links below:

 

 

Students spend the entire month of December learning how to code by working through grade specific self-paced courses on the website, Code.org.  Kindergarten classes first learned how to instruct a dinosaur to move and dance on the screen using the iPad app, Daisy the Dinosaur, and then they progressed to the Code.org website with desktop computers.  During the week of December 3-7, all students participated in The Hour of Code, a global phenomenon in which millions of students from around the world spend an hour learning about computer science and coding. Students assembled a series of commands into simple programs to get popular characters from Minecraft, Frozen, Star Wars and other popular games to accomplish simple tasks. Fourth and fifth graders learned how to code and animate characters to dance to popular hits. Ask your student about their coding lessons, and explore coding with them by going to the website, Code.org.