Computers

If I had to sum up my frustrations from the past week into one word, it would be, "computers."

I haven't had a chance to post anything in a while because I don't have much time to type something up during the week and I had fully planned on blogging last weekend--and then my computer decided it didn't want to turn on any more. Turns out the hard drive is kaput and my options were to spend money getting a new hard drive on a computer I had been wanting to replace for a while or just bite the bullet and get the Mac I've been wanting. So I got a Mac (yay!) but I had to wait a few days for it to come in the mail and all that jazz so I am now up and running again.

Another computer-related frustration--right now, my school is working to introduce an online program called Study Island more into second grade and most of the teachers don't know anything about it. Thankfully, the school I student-taught at pushed it a lot so I have a general understanding of it. I won't go into the gory details about my frustrations behind all of the Study Island related things but I wanted to add another thing to my computer list.

Also, my printer at school has no ink and our grade level printer is also out of ink.

Don't you just love everything technology?

Anyway, the point of this entry is that I am searching for ideas. My students' writing portfolios have to have a "digital copy of a piece" in them by the end of the year and they have zero computer skills. Meaning my students don't know to click the "X" to get out of a screen, much less how to type up a document.  My plan is to practice creating things on the computer throughout the year so that, by the end of the year, they will be able to produce something really great to go into their portfolio. I have signed up to have the class set of laptops for two days the week after next and I need something simple for them to create. I want it to involve a little bit of typing but not so much that they get frustrated. They will be working on imaginative narratives and will already have the product completely written and edited and they will need to create a digital copy of it. Any ideas on what they could create? My only idea is to maybe type up a sentence or two for their beginning, middle, and end and then illustrate it in paint. I need help! :)