December 10, 2012

Teaching Technology to Kindergartners

A while back I promised you I would be detailing our EdTech Scope and Sequence by grade level.

Below you'll find the overview of Kindergarten tech skills.  It has been a little slow in coming, because I wanted to get the full K-5 Sequence in ready-to-use format before jumping into the nitty gritty, and it's ready now (mostly), so... here goes!

Here is a pdf of the full K-5 Scope and Sequence.


Please feel free to use, copy, print and distribute these to your team. Our sequence is broken down by grade level to make it easier for you to know which chunk is yours. This work is based on the NETS standards for students (which are  National Educational Technology Standards ...which were developed by the ISTE Professional Standards committee, funded by NASA in consultation with the US Department of Education....blah, blah, blah. You get it. They're legit, that's all. :) )

This represents many hours of work by a group of awesome tech smarties, and we sure hope it can save you a similar expenditure of hours! If you have improvements, suggestions, we'd love to hear them!

Kindergarten

Here's the nitty gritty.

As in any subject area, teaching tech skills to Kinders is about evening the playing field. They each come with a stunning range of tech experience. This year in particular, my Kindergartners are coming to me with absolutely no idea what a mouse is or how to use it. (This is very different from past years, thank you iPad). But these guys still need mouse skills...very much. So we start there.
If I sum up what Tech skills are required in Kindergarten it looks like this:


1. Teach them what a mouse and keyboard are and how to use them. 

2. Teach them what it means to "login" and "log out"

3. Let technology serve to make literacy and learning FUN for them! (This tool is kinesthetic, visual, auditory all at once...technology helps engage your struggling, disinterested kiddos. They'll make connections in front of the screen that you've been struggling for weeks with simply because it can hold their attention.)


Easy peasy, right?
Wait, I'm about to make it easier. Here is a single card with all the resource tools and links we use to accomplish this in our Kinder classrooms. You can download it (all the links should stay with it and then you can use it later), or use just use the links below. Here's what's on it:
  • Teach them to login. I give them each a little card with their login info and the time to find their names on the keyboard. 
This is a slow (kind of painful) process at first, but remember, these keyboard and mouse skills are what they're there to learn so if they only end up with a minute or two on the actual game, it's ok. It motivates them to learn and login faster next time when they only get a little taste. 

  • For practice, I send home this keyboard worksheet and ask parents to have them practice finding their names. 


If you laminate them, they can be used for dinner placemats and kiddos get a little bit of practice every day. This gets them logging in really fast! You can also keep old keyboards or copies of this page in your classroom for practice during "choice time".
  • Then we take them to Starfall.com. Oh my goodness.

If you've never put your kiddos on these games, you are going to love watching how they engage with the letters and sounds. This website also makes it so easy to differentiate. I can have one kiddo practicing letter sounds while the one right next to him is practicing onset and rime and reading books that challenge him. I love seeing them absorb the way they do when they're working on this website!

That's Kindergarten.
Next up: First grade!







1 comment:

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