Tech skills that are not as intuitive as we think
After navigating my first year as a K-8 computer teacher, I came to a new appreciation of just how many computer skills I take for granted. As adult (and a millennial) I'm so familiar with the vocabulary, workflow, and technique needed to use a computer that I forget how I learned all these things in the first place. (This is a phenomenon I've experienced many times as a teacher when I need to teach a subject I've never taught before.) I had some knowledge from using computers often in my previous job as a middle school math, language arts, and religion teacher. I generally knew what to expect from 6th-8th graders in terms of what they know and don't know. However, I now teach much younger students too and my first few months on the job were a steep learning curve in how to explain computer skills to young kids, and manage them on the machines - so they understood what to do AND nothing got messed up on the computer.
Below are the top skills I discovered are definitely not intuitive on the computer (some expected and some unexpected) and need careful instruction.
Mouse/Cursor Skills
This was the focus for about the first six weeks of the school year for kindergarten (and 2-3 weeks for 1st grade). The mouse is quite a tricky fine-motor skill for some students. (Thankfully we had mouses. Trackpads would have been harder.) Kids need to learn how to click with their pointer finger only (left-click), and how to fix it when they accidentally right-click. They learned about the scroll wheel and how to make sure the cursor arrow stays confined to the game space on the screen. Students played several games to learn and practice aiming, clicking, holding, and dragging with the mouse. Click on the links below to see some of these games:
Finding Letters on the Keyboard
The youngest students (Kindergarten and 1st grade) also worked hard to learn how to type letters on the keyboard. It was a revelation to many of them to see that letters on the keyboard are not in alphabetical order. I expected this, but I was a little surprised by the tremendous amount of time and practice needed for students to proficiently (and quickly) remember the location of all letters. For 1st grade, this also included incorporating the shift key for capital letters. The games below are listed in order of difficulty as students became more comfortable with typing.
Computer Workflow
What I mean by "workflow" is the pattern of moving between tabs on the computer to gather information from one site and record it on another. Efficient workflow also requires a person to have a clear understanding of all tabs/windows open on computer and when they're needed or not needed. This process makes a lot of sense to some people, while others struggle and need lots of practice to become efficient.
This skill applies mostly to my students in 3rd-8th grade, once they have Google accounts and all work is done through the internet browser. In 3rd grade especially, this took some careful training at the beginning of the year. I guided students through the process of opening files from Google Classroom and modeled reading information from a list in one tab and recording on a spreadsheet in another tab. This took a lot of practice for some students, but by the end of year they were ready for a slide show research project with much more complex workflow (moving between Google Classroom, the slide show, and 1-2 websites on the animal they were researching).
Even middle school students need careful instruction and time to practice and become comfortable with certain computer workflow tasks. For example, my 5th-8th grade students created Prezi presentations (5th/6th grade) and WeVideo slide shows (7th/8th grade) that required a complex series of steps to obtain images. They not only had to work between 3-4 tabs, but download files to computer and then upload them to their projects. (And then remember to close tabs once they no longer needed a given site.) Read more about these projects in my post about 5th-8th grade Easter projects.
I'll admit I got a little frustrated trying to teach workflow, since this has become such second-nature for me over the years. But I have to remember that it took years of experience and practice to learn the skills I have. My students figured it out eventually. It just took time. Teaching students to master computer workflow is very important, since it's a skill they'll use in high school, college, and any career in the future.
Email Etiquette
Email etiquette was part of my middle school curriculum, and it turned out to be a very useful skill to students during the year. It was a revelation to many students that emails should be written more like letters than like text messages. Before this lesson, I received some emails from students that were very informally written with no salutation or closing, incomplete sentences, and misspelled words. After teaching about email, I told students I would no longer answer questions in emails that weren't in the correct format, had too many spelling/grammar errors, or didn't have a polite tone. They got the message and email quality definitely improved. At the end of the year, I had my 8th graders write a reflection blog post on the three topics they thought were most useful this year. Many of them wrote about proper email writing.
Email is a relatively new medium for middle school students, who probably use mainly text messages and social media between their friends and family members. Like any form of writing, email expectations must be taught and practiced. As adults, we all use email constantly in our careers and personal lives. To parents reading this, please make sure your children learn how to write proper emails, especially if your child's school doesn't seem to be teaching it.
Below are the websites from my curriculum that students used to learn about email.
Below are the top skills I discovered are definitely not intuitive on the computer (some expected and some unexpected) and need careful instruction.
Mouse/Cursor Skills
This was the focus for about the first six weeks of the school year for kindergarten (and 2-3 weeks for 1st grade). The mouse is quite a tricky fine-motor skill for some students. (Thankfully we had mouses. Trackpads would have been harder.) Kids need to learn how to click with their pointer finger only (left-click), and how to fix it when they accidentally right-click. They learned about the scroll wheel and how to make sure the cursor arrow stays confined to the game space on the screen. Students played several games to learn and practice aiming, clicking, holding, and dragging with the mouse. Click on the links below to see some of these games:
- Mouse Practice
- Bees and Honey
- Shapes Construction
- Fuzz Bugs: Patterns
- Fuzz Bugs: Counting, Sorting, Comparing
Finding Letters on the Keyboard
The youngest students (Kindergarten and 1st grade) also worked hard to learn how to type letters on the keyboard. It was a revelation to many of them to see that letters on the keyboard are not in alphabetical order. I expected this, but I was a little surprised by the tremendous amount of time and practice needed for students to proficiently (and quickly) remember the location of all letters. For 1st grade, this also included incorporating the shift key for capital letters. The games below are listed in order of difficulty as students became more comfortable with typing.
- Keyboard Zoo (Go through the letters in alphabetical order. No time limit.)
- Cup Stacking Typing (Find letters in mixed order. No time limit.)
- Keyboard Climber (Mixed order. Levels are timed so player has to start over if not completed quickly enough.)
- Keyboard Climber 2 (Same as Keyboard Climber above, but includes upper-case letters.)
- Typing Rocket Jr. (Mixed letters. Type as many letters as possible in 3 minutes.)
Computer Workflow
What I mean by "workflow" is the pattern of moving between tabs on the computer to gather information from one site and record it on another. Efficient workflow also requires a person to have a clear understanding of all tabs/windows open on computer and when they're needed or not needed. This process makes a lot of sense to some people, while others struggle and need lots of practice to become efficient.
This skill applies mostly to my students in 3rd-8th grade, once they have Google accounts and all work is done through the internet browser. In 3rd grade especially, this took some careful training at the beginning of the year. I guided students through the process of opening files from Google Classroom and modeled reading information from a list in one tab and recording on a spreadsheet in another tab. This took a lot of practice for some students, but by the end of year they were ready for a slide show research project with much more complex workflow (moving between Google Classroom, the slide show, and 1-2 websites on the animal they were researching).
Even middle school students need careful instruction and time to practice and become comfortable with certain computer workflow tasks. For example, my 5th-8th grade students created Prezi presentations (5th/6th grade) and WeVideo slide shows (7th/8th grade) that required a complex series of steps to obtain images. They not only had to work between 3-4 tabs, but download files to computer and then upload them to their projects. (And then remember to close tabs once they no longer needed a given site.) Read more about these projects in my post about 5th-8th grade Easter projects.
I'll admit I got a little frustrated trying to teach workflow, since this has become such second-nature for me over the years. But I have to remember that it took years of experience and practice to learn the skills I have. My students figured it out eventually. It just took time. Teaching students to master computer workflow is very important, since it's a skill they'll use in high school, college, and any career in the future.
Email Etiquette
Email etiquette was part of my middle school curriculum, and it turned out to be a very useful skill to students during the year. It was a revelation to many students that emails should be written more like letters than like text messages. Before this lesson, I received some emails from students that were very informally written with no salutation or closing, incomplete sentences, and misspelled words. After teaching about email, I told students I would no longer answer questions in emails that weren't in the correct format, had too many spelling/grammar errors, or didn't have a polite tone. They got the message and email quality definitely improved. At the end of the year, I had my 8th graders write a reflection blog post on the three topics they thought were most useful this year. Many of them wrote about proper email writing.
Email is a relatively new medium for middle school students, who probably use mainly text messages and social media between their friends and family members. Like any form of writing, email expectations must be taught and practiced. As adults, we all use email constantly in our careers and personal lives. To parents reading this, please make sure your children learn how to write proper emails, especially if your child's school doesn't seem to be teaching it.
Below are the websites from my curriculum that students used to learn about email.
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