Welcome to St. Bernadette Technology Class! The technology program provides opportunities for students to develop an understanding of technology tools that will help to enhance learning, promote creativity, strengthen problem-solving, incorporate STREAM curriculum and heighten the ability to access and communicate information. Classes meet one time per week.

Projects are often theme-based and reinforce taught concepts while exposing students to real-world skills to be used in continued education and relevant to the workplace.

In Kindergarten, students work on identifying letters and numbers on a keyboard. They learn to open a multimedia program and explore the toolbars. Kindergartners open an existing template and create their own masterpieces. We explore the pencil and paint bucket in our “What Plants Need” project. Kindergarteners have used the thickness tool and love changing colors! Students have viewed web pages with the teacher to see examples of art using shades of one color. Students practiced the “shades of blue” technique by painting their own blue shade pictures of the sea. The class made shapes and even made caterpillars using circles. Our next project includes using stamps to accent templates and illustrating and entering text in pages of our class book!

First graders explore toolbars and have viewed web pages with the teacher on constellations. We look at the Big Dipper and Little Dipper. Students connected the stars in their constellation pictures. Students visit a website on pumpkins, selected their favorite pumpkin, and “carved” a jack-o-lantern, using their mouse skills. What fantastic jack-o-lanterns we had! Future projects include applying their knowledge of the five senses and opening an existing project and adding graphics and text.

Second grade begins the year with a project based on Eric Carle’s The Very Lonely Firefly and develops their mastery of the toolbars by making their Very Friendly Friend Fireflies. We have also created text on ways to be a friendly friend. We hope you stop by to see the second-grade bulletin board outside of the Technology Room. Students then created a Very Busy Spider and connected the two insect slides for a mini-show. Second grade reviews the parts of a computer and more about the location of each of the keys on the keyboard. Our next projects include entering text in Making Friends and writing Tall Tales to further develop word processing skills.

In third grade, students learned to move, place text, and use arrow keys in the ABC Order List. In our next theme project, we have learned about jobs and explored the qualities of a good worker using selected websites with the teacher. Students are developing their word processing skills by entering sentences, using the delete and backspace keys, learning about spacing after punctuation, and selecting and changing font size and color in our Help Wanted poster project. Our next project includes using a multimedia program to develop communication in technology skills.

Fourth grade has been working on many projects to cut, copy and paste letters, words, phrases, and complete sentences within various projects. Selecting, deleting, and inserting text and clip art have also been practiced while using the Internet to research facts to include in our projects. Fourth and fifth grades use the Type to Learn Program to practice keyboarding skills. 

Fifth graders have used ordered and unordered list options and learned how to use the thesaurus. Students are expected to use spell check in all documents. Students have had a Web Scavenger Hunt Project in which students needed to find information by following the hyperlinks included with the questions page. Fourth and Fifth-grade future projects include developing PowerPoint and Excel skills.

Sixth grade has developed research and communication skills and learned Internet and world wide web terminology. Students saw how location codes can tell more about the sources of information. Sixth graders are working on spreadsheet skills and are using surveys, and online probability tools to input data and use this data in colorful graphs.

Seventh graders have been developing research skills and using the information to infer the best time to see peak color at select locations. Students use appropriate tools and technologies to find the changes in leaf colors and the role climate and elevation play by researching data on leaf color change and leaf drop rates through parts of the United States. After tracking this data, students compiled the information into a spreadsheet using Excel and graphed the data. Seventh graders took this information and applied it to a problem-solving situation. Seventh grade also has been practicing their web page skills and have created a Web Page information, Penguin page, and their favorite religious person page. All pages included gif or jpeg graphic files and hyperlinks to other sites. Some pages had ordered lists and marquees! Future projects include work in developing Word, Excel, and Powerpoint skills.

Eighth-grade students compiled a survey and listed those results using spreadsheet skills and focused on style, paste, header, and hide/unhide rows. Students took this data and transformed it into a graph and imported this file into Word as part of a letter that explained the new business to an investor. Students designed their own letterhead and set up the letter using proper formatting. Eighth graders then used drawing tools to draft a floor plan. Our next part of the project will enable students to use Excel to calculate their earnings. Our business ideas really have taken shape! Future projects include work in developing Word, Excel, and Powerpoint skills, in addition to an animated movie. Students will be able to participate in our google classroom.