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Skills
Checklist Research One of
the projects attempted this year was testing of students at
Grades 1 to 9 to ensure that students were mastering the
information technology skills appropriate for their grade
level. During
our research we made several discoveries, which we would
like to share in order to inform others who are attempting
this type of research. 1.
Our research did not begin till after Christmas break.
This was due to us not setting what research we would be
doing to late October and then school activities related to
term requirements for reporting purposes taking precedence
over testing. This was late in the school year to begin
testing but it did allow us to work through the testing to
see what changes we would make in subsequent years and also
it gave us a measurement of our student's computer skills. Next
year we plan to begin in September with planning with
classroom teachers as to what specific skills to focus on
throughout the year, pretesting of the skills, revisiting
the skills throughout the winter term and then test in
February/March to assess the learning of the skills. 2. The
list of skills that we would be testing came from several
skills continuums made by other school groups. When we
looked at testing the skills we realized that many of the
skills were not ones which were a priority for our students.
As well many of the skills were directly related to word
processing. Many of our students work in a variety of
programs in which word processing, is not the main focus.
We noticed there were many IT skills, which we felt were a
priority (such as being able to search for subjects on an
electronic encyclopedia) that were not addressed in the
continuums we were planning to use. Very
early into this years research key members of our technology
committee met and reviewed the skills we would be testing
for this year. We picked some key skills that were
appropriate for what students are doing at our school.
Next year we hope to meet with classroom teachers at each
grade level early in September and decide on which skills
will be the focus for their grade in the 2003-2004 school
year. The possibility of developing a school skills rubric
for each grade has been discussed. 3.
This year testing was done mainly by the School Librarian
and the Elementary Computer Teacher. In many cases the
testing was done separately from their classroom work not as
observation during regular assignments. 4. In
all classes, 80% or more of students appeared able to
complete the technology skills requested. Students with a
high amount of absentism or who were working below grade
level in their regular classroom seemed to have difficulty
in some of the technology skills for their grade level.
Those students which had spent more time in their classroom
and in the computer lab completing ICT projects such as
Grassroots projects appeared to have stronger ability in
terms of the skills tested for their grade level. 5.
Skills for each grade which were tested this year: Grade
One:
Open programs from the Start Menu
Use shift for Upper Case letters
Press return to go to the next line
Save a story by typing in a file name
Retrieve a story using File/Open
Insert pictures
Use the mouse and/or arrow keys to navigate Grade
Two:
Change size of font when typing
Continue to type at end of line (not using return)
Put a period at the end of a sentence
Insert a picture from a network drive
Use copy and paste
Use a drawing program to illustrate Grade
Three:Open files
from a network drive
Save files to a network drive
Change font before typing
Find Internet location by typing in an address
Follow teacher directions to use specific math
software Grade
Four:
Search for a simple subject in World Book
Search for a simple topic in a Search Engine
Hightlight text to copy and paste
Highlight a picture to copy and paste
Insert clipart Grade
Five:
Use center align to center a title and left align for
the body of the text
Use Print Preview prior to printing
Print a document
Use save as to save to their own folder on the
Transit drive
Insert clipart into a text document (Word) and use
Format Picture/Layout
Use spell checker to edit text
Highlight selected text to change font or size
Use edit/undo on the menu to correct text Grade
Six:
Copy and paste from one document to another
Use keyboard commands Ctrl C and Ctrl V to copy and
paste
Insert name in header
Use the tab key to indent
Double space by using Ctrl 2 or Format paragraph
Add a border in Word Grade 7: Use headers and footers to insert date, name or title Use menu to print specific page Use menu to open more than one document
Find source of image from Internet Grade 8: Use “Windows” techniques to alternate between documents
Use menu to insert graphic and wrap text around graphic Grade 9: Use menu or toolbar to insert text or graphics into a document from another source Use ‘save as’ to convert text files Use landscape or portrait orientation Create columns Journal
Writing on the Computer Research A
teacher who was using the computer lab for personal journal
writing with a Grade 5 class noticed that it appeared that
the students were more eager to write using the computer and
she felt that by March their writing had greatly increased.
She decided to do some research on this.
Writing samples at the beginning of the year were
analyzed and word counts taken.
Student writing samples were resampled in April.
Significant growth was apparent for most students.
The graphs and information about this can be found on the
Sargent Park web site.
Next year the teacher hopes to have a Grade 5 class
who is doing traditional journal writing be a control group
for her class in which she will continue to do personal
journal writing on the computer.
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2008 -- © Sargent Park School 2008
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