Recently, I was helping a teacher who was having her students type up essays they have recently finished revising. Both their teacher and myself were surprised when the students didn't know how to format their essays; both of us were receiving questions on alignment, how to change font (and then explain why Blackadder in size 18 wasn't the font to use to write an essay for school), and how to save. We turned to each other after class asking, shouldn't 7th graders know how to do this?
During the rest of the days classes, we showed the students how their paper should be set up, with a heading, title, and where the alignment icons were located and which ones they needed to use for their heading and title. Then we would show them how to set up the body of their essay and where the font and size tools were located and to use Times New Roman in size 12. Then where and how to save their essays. It wasn't a problem to do this, but it made me think about why I hadn't had to do this before and as the instructional technology guru in the building, how did I miss this?
Some other questions floating through my head included, "what kind of computer skills should students be receiving and at what age?" "What kind of computer skills should teachers and myself be talking about when creating a lesson?" "What more can I do to prepare students before they reach high school?" In talking with other teachers that used to teach elementary school, I found out that students really don't receive any of these skills before reaching middle school. They have computer lab time, but that doesn't mean they're learning how to use MS Office and the skills we assumed the students were already taught.
We also talked about this topic at that week's technology committee meeting. Other teachers agreed with me that some kind of plan needs to be put into place to teach these skills, without taking away from instruction time, which is obviously the difficult part. How do we teach these skills without taking away from instruction time and giving everyone one MORE item to accomplish.
For now, it involves asking the question, "What do I want my students to learn and what technology skills are associated with that?" Then go step by step and teach it to them. Eventually, my goal will be to work with various departments at certain points throughout the year, in helping students work with MS Office and building up their skills with various assignments.
I would love to hear if you've run into a similar problem at your school or how you go about teaching these skills. Please share below!
During the rest of the days classes, we showed the students how their paper should be set up, with a heading, title, and where the alignment icons were located and which ones they needed to use for their heading and title. Then we would show them how to set up the body of their essay and where the font and size tools were located and to use Times New Roman in size 12. Then where and how to save their essays. It wasn't a problem to do this, but it made me think about why I hadn't had to do this before and as the instructional technology guru in the building, how did I miss this?
Some other questions floating through my head included, "what kind of computer skills should students be receiving and at what age?" "What kind of computer skills should teachers and myself be talking about when creating a lesson?" "What more can I do to prepare students before they reach high school?" In talking with other teachers that used to teach elementary school, I found out that students really don't receive any of these skills before reaching middle school. They have computer lab time, but that doesn't mean they're learning how to use MS Office and the skills we assumed the students were already taught.
We also talked about this topic at that week's technology committee meeting. Other teachers agreed with me that some kind of plan needs to be put into place to teach these skills, without taking away from instruction time, which is obviously the difficult part. How do we teach these skills without taking away from instruction time and giving everyone one MORE item to accomplish.
For now, it involves asking the question, "What do I want my students to learn and what technology skills are associated with that?" Then go step by step and teach it to them. Eventually, my goal will be to work with various departments at certain points throughout the year, in helping students work with MS Office and building up their skills with various assignments.
I would love to hear if you've run into a similar problem at your school or how you go about teaching these skills. Please share below!
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