From: Fran.O'gorman@f94.n272.z1.fidonet.org (Fran O'gorman)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.comp.literacy
Subject: Re: computer curriculum
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 20:37:26 PST
Organization: FidoNet node 1:272/94 - Monroe Electronic M, Monroe NY

 ML> I will be teaching computers to students from K to 8 this 
 ML> September. I am looking for a curriculum for computers to help me 
 ML> in my long range planning. Please contact me at St-Philippe School 
 ML> in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.Thank you from Maurice Lapointe.

Hi Maurice,

I'm from a very small school district where the Computer
Coordinator taught computers to our (only) elementary school in
the afternoon and taught computers to our junior high in the
mornings traveling from the 2 buildings.  He has since left the
district and as a money saving measure was not replaced so the
task has fallen to my shoulders for the Junior High portion- 7th
grade(I used to fill in for him alot and was very familiar with
his program) with the 8th grade being given to the business
education teacher. (They did hire someone for the elementary
part-time).

I'll tell you what had been done and what we plan to do (where
that is different)

Joe used an integrated database/spreadsheet/word processing
program by McGraw Hill and concentrated much of his time on that
(but did not include spreadsheet-- which is something I want to
get into more) He also exposed the kids to desktop publishing
using the Newsroom by SpringBoard with the assignment being that
the students would go to the library and get information on a
famous person and then write 6 'news-stories' related to their
person's life and select appropriate graphics and lay it out like
a newpaper.  That assignment takes approximately 2 weeks.  I plan
to retain both these parts of his curriculum.

He also spent some preliminary time using a program called
Type-Right for keyboarding skills (not the best program for this
purpose) and not being a keyboarding person the students developed
some bad keyboarding habits that the business teacher had to break
later. Not being a keyboarding person either I've decided NOT to
include this, and will leave keyboarding to be addressed by her in
8th grade.

Joe included a little Basic programming in the eighth grade.
Basic programming is a strength of mine so I will teach that in
seventh grade.  Enough, that they can write some simple programs,
but also appreciate the difference between working with a
programming language and the language of an application like
dbase3 or the commands of an operating system.

In the elementary they use Apples only and so this is their first
formal exposure to IBM's.  I see this as an opportunity to pull
things together and sort out some of the misconceptions that might
(and often do) occur.  I've had students with data disks from
having used Lotus 123 come into the library and see the apple
sitting there and niavely ask, "can I finish up my work on this?"
not realizing the difference!  And yet that same kid could be an
expert at using Lotus 123.  I'm hoping to get a little into the
history and future of computers also and hope to give them a
little exposure to modem use as well.

A certain amount of time had always been given to programs like
Rocky's Boots and Where in the US/World/Time is Carmen Santiago,
and I'll probably do that too, but since each class has this for
only 10 weeks each, I won't be able to give much time to that.

I know they've had LOGO in the elementary and I've had experience
with that as well and think it's a marvelous vehicle... but beyond
that, I am not really 'up' on apple world stuff so I guess someone
else should answer that one...

Anyway, my experience with the kids is that they are usually more
capable than we expect and we are more likely to underchallenge
them than the opposite.

I also feel that we have a habit of doing things like formatting
disks and copying files FOR the students and they become less
knowledgable in those areas so I plan on making them do those
procedures themselves.

Not exactly a curriculum, but some ideas...hope this helps...

--Fran





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