Tag Archives: ict

TechnoKids India Announces Online ICT Olympiad

Teachers and students in India take note: ICT Olympiad is an online contest challenging students in Grades 5 to 12. The contest promotes information and communication technology skills. Winners and prizes will be awarded in three categories:

Junior – Students in Grades 5 and 6
Intermediate – Students in Grades 7, 8, and 9
Senior – Students in Grades 10, 11, and 12

After registering, students receive free online access to a curriculum project. Registration opens August 1, 2015 and closes September 25, 2015. Winners will be declared October 20, 2015.
To register or for further information, visit TechnoKids India or email ictolympiad@technokidsindia.com.

Are Your Students Hiding Their Lack of ICT Skills?

You are looking at a printed poster and the work looks excellent. Does that mean your student possesses strong ICT skills? Not necessarily!

Here’s why…

Your students might be applying inefficient techniques to create the desired result. Let me give you an example.

At the school where I am teaching as a guest instructor, the students begin using TechnoKids Computer Curriculum in kindergarten. By the time these students reach Grade 7 they have spent years completing technology based projects.

ict skills

I have noticed over the past few weeks of teaching that some of the students lack basic ICT skills. Since I am a guest instructor, I am unfamiliar with which students are newer members to the school community. After inquiring about the situation, I learned that some of the students in my class have not been at the school since kindergarten, so there are gaps in their skillset.

The strategies these students are applying are not noticeable in a printed copy. For example, the Grade 7 class just completed the poster activity for TechnoWonderland. They look fantastic!

Looking at the posters you can’t tell if the students:

aligned text using the alignment tools or the spacebar
wrapped text around a picture using text wrapping tools or if they manually arranged text
limited their formatting choices because they did not know how to apply other tool options
used time saving techniques or not

How can teachers notice the lack of ICT skills?

As a teacher you cannot judge ICT skills based solely on the printed version. Instead, you need to watch your students work as well as preview the digital copy. Here are some tips:

Watch Your Students Work: Walk around the room or position yourself in a location where you can preview the monitors. Observe your students working.
Activate Show/Hide: Ask students to temporarily turn on Show/Hide. It is a tool in Microsoft Office that displays hidden formatting symbols. The ENTER key produces a paragraph mark ¶, SPACEBAR a dot, and TAB key an arrow. These marks will help you determine if students are formatting text properly.
Challenge Students: Make a suggestion that will improve the layout or design of the publication. If students possess the ICT skill, without instruction they will be able to produce the suggested result. If they can’t, this gives you an excellent opportunity to introduce a tool or feature.

ICT skills can’t be measured just by viewing the final printed copy. By following these tips you will be able to identify students who might be hiding their lack of skills. This will allow you to help your students discover new, more efficient ways to produce quality publications.

Create a Shared Student Folder on your Server

Teachers need to be flexible! They must adjust their lessons based on their students’ needs. In addition, they need to capitalize on their students’ unique interests. To do this, they need a shared student folder on the server.

What is a shared student folder?

Many schools have a server that is used for file management. Typically, teachers and students have folders on the server where they save their work. Permissions are used to control who can view or change the contents of the folders. In most cases, students can only access their own folder, whereas teachers can access folders for students in their class or sometimes the entire school.

Have your IT Specialist create a shared student folder on your server.

For teachers to share files with students, they often have to copy and paste a document into EACH student folder. This can be VERY time consuming and is often not feasible if the teacher has multiple classes. The solution is to have a shared student folder.

A shared student folder is a location on the server where teachers can place files. All the students in a particular class or sometimes the entire student body can “read” or open the files in this folder. The files are then viewed or resaved by students into their own folder.

Do you need a shared student folder?

Of course you do!
Not everything can be PLANNED at the beginning of the school year. Spontaneity is part of teaching!

Ask yourself these questions:

Have you ever stumbled across an informative website you know would be perfect for a particular group of students working on a research project? Can you easily share a bookmark?
Have you ever realized that some of your students are struggling to complete a task? Are you able to easily share a template that will help them complete their work?
Have you ever noticed that some of your students are not paying attention or require a review? Are you able to develop a “pop quiz” that can be easily accessed by everyone in the class?
Have you ever noted that some of your students are struggling with learning a concept? Are you able to create a sample file or instructional video that can easily be viewed by all students?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then you need a shared student folder on the server.

What can you do with a shared student folder?

There are many types of files you might want to share:

bookmark to a website or online educational video
template that offers a starting point for completing a task
digital assessment tools such as a checklist, review, or quiz
sample of a completed project that students can review to get ideas
instructional video that demonstrates the steps to complete a task

Be flexible! Be spontaneous! Improve student learning!

If you don’t have a shared student folder you should request that your IT Specialist create one for you. It is easy for the technician to do and will make a huge difference when you are teaching.

ICT in Education: Creativity and Computers

Design computer-related tasks that spark creativity!

Recently, I began to teach TechnoWonderland to a class of grade 7/8 students. They love the idea of creating their own amusement park. We have just completed planning our park and now students are designing a poster using Microsoft Word. As you may have guessed, from a technology skill standpoint we are focusing on word processing skills. However, there is so much more happening than formatting text and objects.

UPDATE 3/27/2018: TechnoKids has updated TechnoWonderland for the LATEST version of Microsoft Office.

CREATIVITY!

Even though everyone in the class is doing the same task and completing the identical steps, each poster is unique. To give you a sense of the range of ideas, one student called his park Safari Fest and it has all animal themed attractions. While another student called his park Horror Land and it has all scary rides. The students have come up with clever ideas for the names of their restaurants, shops, and attractions. I am amazed by their CREATIVITY!

Three Reasons to Provide Tasks that Inspire Creativity

There are numerous benefits to inspiring creativity in your students. Creativity helps students:

develop original ideas
become activity engaged in a task because they feel motivated
apply their unique talents and interests to complete a task

Three Ways that ICT in Education Promotes Creativity

Consider the ways that ICT in education fosters creativity:

Undo/Redo:Students can easily undo or redo any action. This frees them up to be creative because they don’t have to worry about mistakes ruining their work.
Save a Copy: Students can save a copy of their work, which keeps the original file intact. This allows them to take risks because they have a “safety net”. If things don’t work out, they can always return to the original file.
Alter Design and Layout: The computer allows students to easily format, size, and arrange information and objects. This allows them to play around with the content, layout, and design to create the perfect look for their work.

Improve student learning. Design computer-related tasks that promote creativity.