1st Grade Technology

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Permalink Reply by Connie on June 18, 2008 at 11:40am

Comment by Connie 7 minutes ago
I haven't taught my own technology class. I use it in my classroom as a center. One of my favorite sites for kids is Starfall. I have Kidspirations, but unless I'm working one on one I haven't found a way to make it kid friendly enough for them to do it on their own. It is something that I tend to use with my gifted students. At one time I had a student trained to work with the other students so that they could do some of the activities. The problem that I had with that was that it took so much time and I was to afraid that they would miss out on something else that I was teaching. I think that if I had figured out a way to demonstrate it on a big screen and everyone having a computer to access that I might have been more successful. I have seem many examples of teachers who use it regularly.

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Permalink Reply by Ruth on June 19, 2008 at 7:56pm

Kidspiration would be a great tool for categorizing or word webs and I use it with my 2nd graders in computer lab to start off with because they can follow on the big screen then they use it more independently in centers later. We've also been making hotlists which the kids can click on to go to specific websites.

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Permalink Reply by Erika on June 22, 2008 at 6:41pm

This isn't real "outside the box," but I think it's a pretty fun game for the students who are working on keyboarding...

http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/back-to-school/games/game_...

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Permalink Reply by Jessica Barth on July 20, 2008 at 9:07pm

I felt the same way until I attended a presentation by another first grade teacher who gets kids CREATING with computers. We can first spend time teaching them how to do the basics...log in, open programs, open and close files, access templates. Then they spend time showing what they know using technology...i.e. create a graph showing favorite foods, showing nonstandard measuring with clipart apples, creating self-portraits, sorting matter into solids and liquids. This year I am pretty much abandoning my 5-packs of lab software other than a couple that directly relate to our standards for a curriculum area.

I heard about a program called SRATechKnowledge on the Teacher's Podcast that directly teaches the tech skills to students in 15 minute lessons, including those tricky ones about safety and what the different keys on the keyboard are meant to do. I found it will be too expensive to purchase for our school, but I am enjoying a 30 day trial online that is giving me great ideas about which skills I can make into great lessons for my first graders, and types of projects I could expect them to complete.

The other thing I am doing this year is making my computers a "Listening Center" during reading time. I have found some great sites that have great read alouds for them to listen to.

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Permalink Reply by CC Long on July 21, 2008 at 8:32am

Tammy Worcester has a good website for teachers filled with technology tips. This summer, my daughters have enjoyed using TuxPaint and Tux Type which are free open source downloads.

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Permalink Reply by Kristi Meeuwse on July 23, 2008 at 10:28am

Do you have KidPix? It's a great program that we use in kindergarten, first and second grade. We use it in Lang. Arts with inserting text boxes, and in math with adding and subtracting with the stamping tools. We also use Kidspiration a good bit as well. You could also use Voicethread easily with early childhood students.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Miller on November 6, 2008 at 6:27pm

I've collected many websites for my first grade class. You can find them at this URL:

http://guest.portaportal.com/mmillergrade1

I put these sites on a more student-friendly website where I can introduce them one at a time and provide images to click, and where they can go to at home:

http://www.sad55.org/~mmiller/Helpful%20Links

Use any of these if they help.

I use the above sites with our themed units, and it doesn't take them long to
Once we start spelling sentences, I start them out by copying their spelling list in a vertical row using the return key, and saving their work as a file. Then each week add another component of keyboarding - shift key for capitals, numbered list, bold for hardest words on list, underline easiest, writing a sentence with punctuation, adding clip art illustration for the sentence etc. By the end, most first graders seem pretty comfortable with using the word processor (we've used Appleworks and Pages so far).

I'm excited to find this discussion and hope to learn and share lots more!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Miller on November 6, 2008 at 6:43pm

I've collected many websites for my first grade class. You can find them at this URL:

http://guest.portaportal.com/mmillergrade1

I put these sites on a more student-friendly website where I can introduce them one at a time and provide images to click, and where they can go to at home:

http://www.sad55.org/~mmiller/Helpful%20Links

Use any of these if they help.

I use the above sites with our themed units, and it doesn't take them long to
Once we start spelling sentences, I start them out by copying their spelling list in a vertical row using the return key, and saving their work as a file. Then each week add another component of keyboarding - shift key for capitals, numbered list, bold for hardest words on list, underline easiest, writing a sentence with punctuation, adding clip art illustration for the sentence etc. By the end, most first graders seem pretty comfortable with using the word processor (we've used Appleworks and Pages so far).

I'm excited to find this discussion and hope to learn and share lots more!

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Permalink Reply by sharon sinclair on November 7, 2008 at 5:27pm

TuxPaint is an absolutely awesome paint program! Our school had KidPix on our lab computers (Macs) but with the new QuickTime updates the animations no longer worked. It happened that that was while I was also becoming obsessed with open source software and stumbled upon TuxPaint. It works equally beautifully on either the Mac or Windows platforms and the stamps are PHOTOS which can be resized. I highly recommend using this!!

I teach a multiage 1/2 group and our most current tech project is creating "I Can Count" talking books for our future kindergarten techie students (every year we partner with a kindergarten class in our school and go in weekly to teach them tech stuff). We are using TuxPaint for the images (to create a simple but interesting setting and stamp stamps on it) and then bringing that image into PowerPoint. Within PowerPoint they are writing a simple sentence (who and where) and will then record themselves reading it to present to our buddies on the computer AND give them a copy to take home!

Your kids could create their OWN books or a class book in just TuxPaint or in conjunction with PowerPoint. :) Have fun!!

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