Our classrooms lag behind our children's current social lives and future job opportunities. While some families are able to provide computers and internet access at their home; some are unable. The difference in the abilities of said families is amazing. Some students are familair with typing and understand how a word document is set up. They type their papers up without a thought. Others do not; they force returns at the end of the line instead of letting the computer do it for them. This disparity is always startling in the classroom because for so many of us teachers, computers are a constant in our lives.
To aid in this variety of skill, lessons that computers must be differentiated. We cannot ignore the children who are not as fortunate to have technology in their homes. We must provide the more savvy child a challenging lesson as well as the child who is not. Internet needs to be made easily accessible for those students: time for them to practice moving around and exploring the internet, time for them to practice typing, time for them to learn to email friends as a way of communicating. Tutoring sessions can be provided to learn basic typing skills or word skills that they might not teach in a tech class. Mini-lessons can provide a look into how software can be used at a very basic level, so that all the students can participate in the lesson. It is important technology becomes more important to job finding that are students feel comfortable using this resource.
To aid in this variety of skill, lessons that computers must be differentiated. We cannot ignore the children who are not as fortunate to have technology in their homes. We must provide the more savvy child a challenging lesson as well as the child who is not. Internet needs to be made easily accessible for those students: time for them to practice moving around and exploring the internet, time for them to practice typing, time for them to learn to email friends as a way of communicating. Tutoring sessions can be provided to learn basic typing skills or word skills that they might not teach in a tech class. Mini-lessons can provide a look into how software can be used at a very basic level, so that all the students can participate in the lesson. It is important technology becomes more important to job finding that are students feel comfortable using this resource.
Set a student up on an early morning tutorial before school starts at: http://www.sense-lang.org/.
For some interesting statistics regarding computers in the home: http://infousa.state.gov/education/overview/computeruse.html
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