Today was the lucky day in 1st grade! We got out the net books! With the help of my four fantastic 6th grade helpers, we started blogging. At first I passed out journals, planning to have every student with one computer and typing one journal entry. Of course, that would be too good to be true! A few of the net books were being difficult (ok more like 6 or 8!) so we went back to sharing with a buddy and playing paper, rock, scissor to see who gets to go first. :) Half way through the login process I decided to change and have the students simply copy a post from the board onto their computer. We started simple since many of my students are having difficulty with the keyboard. Any suggestions for helping them, as a whole class instead of individual, learn the keys? Some of them are unfamiliar with the space, enter, backspace, etc. It is difficult to get them to type accurate post, with punctuation, when they don't know the keys. My new goal is to find some kind of a large flipchart/lesson for the interactive white board that re-enforces keyboarding skills. I will share when I find it because I'm sure other primary teachers find that the typing is a huge interference when it comes to integrating technology into core curriculum. I am hoping the parents are patient and willing to take this as an opportunity to watch the children's writing improve. I used www.kidblog.org and am not completely happy or dissatisfied with it yet. I am still on the fence. I felt it was difficult for most of my kids to log in and then make sure they were on the correct page. I do like the fact that it is private though and that it will hopefully be easy for the parents to access. I will keep you posted!!
One teacher's journey to integrating technology into her primary classroom!
