Technology at Sioux Falls Christian

I was sad to find out that our school does not currently have a technology plan in place. I talked with our tech coordinator- and he said that he is busily working on getting this set up for us to implement.
So currently each teacher is doing his or her own thing! Some perhaps are even unaware that there are official technology standards! I am working very hard to get my team and I to satisfy the standards in our grade level. But this year our school is requiring nothing.
The first standard discusses this history and progression of technology. I had an in depth lesson where we discussed the development of tools in farming, and then how communication has progressed throughout the years, and then finally how computers have progressed, and how they are a wonderful tool for us. I had them brainstorm what it would have been like before technology was developed, and then they journaled about what future technologies they could com up with.
Also for the safety/ethical/legal issues standard- we as a class talk lots about what good ethical Christian behavior on computers would look like. How we can practice good Christian conduct, even in the computer lab. We also talked lots about safety issues and specifically never putting whole names on the web. For our blogs that we use weekly, the are only allowed to sign their first name.
The standard which has the students recognize and demonstrate skills and operating technological systems is one that we work very hard on in the 4th grade. Every computer lab lesson has at least one or more of these operations. We constantly are writing newsletters, which involves text boxes, copy and pasting pictures, carefully using spell check, and navigating through specific menus and tool bars. They also are required to save their document, and are accountable for relocating it the next time!
The standards state that 4th graders are required to key 10 WPM at 90% accuracy. Every computer lab lesson we work on keyboarding, and my students are already at or above this level! We do lots of games, and FUN activities where the students are accountable for proper keyboarding. They really pick up on this quickly!
Students also are understanding the purpose of information technologies to communicate with a variety of collaborators. We do weekly blogs in our class. Each student is then required to go back and read the blog and everyone else’s comments, and then they need to comment on other’s comments, etc! They LOVE the fact that they can write something on their computer, and use it to communicate to someone on the way other end of the room! This is an introduction to computer as a communication tool! This is a big highlight!
And the final standard that we satisfy in the 4th grade is students using technology to locate and acquire information. We do a HUGE animal research project in the 4th grade. The students are required to do all of their research for their specific animal on their own. They have to locate appropriate and accurate information. They also search for images of their animal!
We use technology an awful lot in the 4th grade, but there are no specific guidelines from our school! Hopefully next year it will be much better!

Karla Te Slaa