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Mr. B's Newsletters
Print media is still important. I use
newsletter layouts to share information with students. Younger students love to take these home and share with
their families. Older students often are not reading many print
publications these days, so I model page layouts and styles of
presentation (all newsletter links are downloadable, printable .pdf files)
Many of my websites and videos began as newsletter.
Once I organize content into a short "news" style presentation, it is easy
to make a similar multimedia, PowerPoint, or podcast/video script based on
it. If you want to see an example of how I do this, please look at
my Math Minutes web (www.mathminutes.org). It all began as algebra
"newsletters" that supported my first-generation college freshman at the
University of Wisconsin.
September 2014. My "top priority",
getting started, is to prepare students for the computer skills
embedded in Common Core. Fourth-graders need to be able to sit at a
computer and key a one-page paper. Fifth-Grade students are expected
to key a 2-page paper. Middle school students, by the 7th grade, are
expected to comfortably and productivly key any and all school
assignments.
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Touch Typing: Home
Row. At the heart of touch typing is learning to
comfortably rest your fingers on "Home Row" (a-s-d-f left hand, j-k-l-;
right hand). Once you get this down, every other key is a tiny
reach away -- just let your fingertips comfortably do their thing.
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Five Reasons
to "Touch Type". It isn't hard to learn how to
key. It is easy. It just takes practice. Today, there
are many of free online interactive sites. If I can show you how
to get more work done with less effort, are
you wise enough to give it a try? Its fun to learn to key with
online tutorials and keying games.
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The QWERTY
Keyboard. Why is the alphabet all mixed up on
the keyboard? When you learn why, you will understand the reasons
it is so important to learn to key by touch. With practice, you
can teach you fingers to find each key without any hunting-and-pecking
to find letters & punctuation.
- Got
Skills? Top 5 Jobs for Touch Typists.
Keyboarding is a valuable skill. While getting comfortable,
confident, and competent on a computer keyboard helps students in
school, it is even more valuable on-the-job.
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Schools Learn a Lesson
in Importance of Bandwidth. May student's do not
know that Internet service is purchased with limits on the amount of
data that can be uploaded or downloaded -- bandwidth. At home,
many have essentially all the bandwidth one may want. On computer
networks in business and schools, all computers share the available
bandwidth. This is why we cannot have students streaming youtubes
or music services during computer classes -- this slows down every other
computer in our lab and across the entire school.
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