Week 36

Welcome to Week 36 of Keyboarding!

Last week you completed your autobiographical podcast. This week you will complete all of your Keyboarding Online lessons through lesson 33. You will then be able to spend the next week honing your keyboarding skills by repeating the one-minute lessons to reach your goal of 30 WPM. Good luck!

This week you will:

• complete all Keyboarding Online lessons to lesson 33
• Retake all one minute lessons to raise your keyboarding speed
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 36 Learning Objective:
We will work to raise our keyboarding speed (WPM).

Tech Tip Tuesday: A Google A Day

For today's Tech Tip Tuesday, we'll try out Google's fun way to help its users develop better internet search skills!

Want to learn how to search effectively and efficiently in Google?

Google has started A Google A Day as a fun way to learn the best way to search for information on Google!

The Official Google Blog describes it as "A Trivia Game Where Google is Allowed!"

Special Note from Google's Official Blog:
"To prevent spoilers from appearing as you search the web, look for the answers on agoogleaday.com instead of regular google.com—we’ve made a special version of Google that excludes real-time updates and other things that are likely to include spoilers as people post the answers to the puzzle online."

Week 35

Welcome to Week 35 of Keyboarding!

This week everyone should be able to wrap up their podcasts. You may continue to edit your podcast by editing your narration, sound effects, music and photos.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons to lesson 32
  
• continue working on your autobiographical podcast
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 35 Learning Objective:
We will complete our autobiographical podcasts.

Week 34

Welcome to Week 34 of Keyboarding!

Last week we took our annual STAR tests, and I know we achieved new high scores...way to go Cougars!!

Prior to the STAR testing week, we began our first podcast using Garage Band. You are still able to edit your podcast. Continue to add sound effects, edit your narration and music, and you may even add photos to your podcast.

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons to lesson 30
  
• continue working on your autobiographical podcast
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 34 Learning Objective:
We will work on our autobiographical podcasts.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Free and Open Source Software

For today's Tech Tip Tuesday, we will review several great free and open source software resources you or your students can use at school, home, or work!

A colleague of mine from the Academic Talent Search program, Leo Pastrana, is doing an amazing job with our students. His lessons are always engaging and informative! A few weeks ago, his students did a wonderful project researching Cesar Chavez in honor of the California state holiday, and the Cesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning.

This week, he asked me about free and open source software so that he could teach his students about how to install and use this powerful, functional, and varied software on their own computers for free with no copyright issues!

Here's the software I recommended:

List of free and open source software packages

Open Office (office suite software)

Inkscape (vector graphic image software)

GIMP (raster/photo-editing graphic image software)

Audacity (digital audio editor)

VLC (media player)

Week 33

Welcome to Week 33 of Keyboarding!

This week we are STAR testing and our classes are only 14 minutes long all week.

Therefore, there are no new assignments. You may work on either your keyboarding lessons or your podcast.

Good luck on the STAR test!

Go Cougars!

Week 32

Welcome to Week 32 of Keyboarding!

Last week we began our first podcast using Garage Band...way cool!

Everyone in class added their new Magic Garage Band song and three sound effects to their podcast.

This week you will add your personal narration and images to your podcast. The topic of your first podcast is YOU, a very interesting topic, indeed!

This week you will:

• continue your Keyboarding Online lessons to lesson 29
• finish your autobiographical podcast
  

In your student agenda, please write down your Week 32 Learning Objective:
We will complete our autobiographical podcasts.

Ms. Kline's Week 32 Key Vocabulary:

• teamwork