Then, with a click of an icon, a Venn diagram or a line graph appears so that students can examine each item of data. Although it lacks a student-friendly tutorial, it lends itself to any situation in which data can be collected and studied. The time constraints of a regular school day often do not allow teacher-led tutoring on the computer. We must frame opportunities for students to explore the classroom computer at their own pace if we expect their skills to expand. My students use their personal computer time to further explore Tabletop by creating databases that represent the class' role models, favorite authors, dream jobs, family sizes, and weekly spelling scores.
Students check off their names in the database when they returned permission slips.
This helped reinforce the notion that the computer is a tool people can use every day to organize information. You will, however, need to make sure that students use this time effectively. For the elementary classroom where students spend most of the day with the same teacher, the assigned computer time increases play time for students. Although you can monitor students' computer use yourself, this is not a very effective use of your time. Requiring students to make an entry in a class computer journal of what they learned during their computer time can be a valuable assessment tool that holds the students accountable for their computer time.