Carpathia School is equipped with a networked computer lab connecting 30 Pentium computers, a scanner, colour printer, laser printer, projector and a digital camera. The lab is open during school hours with classes rotating through on a predetermined schedule. Once a cycle, each class comes in for a lesson with the computer instructor. The computer instructor teaches the students from grades K–6. Students learn skills to enhance the classroom curriculum. Computer applications are chosen according to the curriculum being addressed. Most of the applications available in the lab are covered by the time the students finish grade 6. Many applications are introduced in grade 1 to be mastered by grade 6.

The classes are usually set up with mini projects that the instructors create. Basic skills for the particular project are taught at the outset, then reviewed and expanded on throughout the remainder of the project.

Examples of programs used, skills taught and subject areas covered through them are as follows:

Hyperstudio and Power Point are multimedia presentation programs. They allow students to create several slides of text and graphics and link them together. This program has been used for stories and research projects. Some of skills learned are importing of graphics, adding sounds, and linking.

Student Writing Center and Microsoft Word are word processing applications. Student Writing Center was designed for children and has a child friendly interface. These are both used for publishing stories, poems, cards, signs, etc. Skills: formatting, copy/paste from the Internet, and editing.

Kid Works Deluxe is also a  word processing program designed for young children K-2. This program includes components for drawing pictures, writing stories, putting the two together to make a animated book with sound. This is often students’ first introduction to the computer. Mouse control is taught with the drawing. Skills such as copy/paste are then introduced, and then the students start to learn how to type a story with spaces, capital letters etc. Finally, they make an illustrated story to read on the computer or print onto paper.

Smart Notebook is the software that our classrooms use with the SMART Board. Carpathia has 5 SMART Boards that rotate between our classrooms. We use the software in the lab to extend the classroom lessons in the lab.

The lab has a DSL connection, which gives all the computers instant access to the Internet. Many classes have focused on using the Internet for research to be combined with other media. As well, the students have e-mail accounts. Many of the students have accessed their e-mail for personal use and class projects.

E-mail instructors intermediate

This page was last updated on 02/13/07