Many students mention to me that they'd like continue working with the software we use at school. We are currently using Microsoft Office 2010 including Word (word processor) and PowerPoint (presentation). If you do not have these programs installed on a computer, a fairly inexpensive Home and Student version of Office is available, Openoffice.org has a free version of these programs available to download, and Google has it's Google Apps tools available online.
Common Sense Media has information about all forms of media (websites, video games, books, movies, apps, music, tv) including rating for age, educational value, role models, consumerism, language, violence, etc. This is a great place to go when you'd like to know more about the media your child is consuming.
At school we use many resources to help students learn about online safety. Our main resource is NetSmartzKids.org. This award-winning website has resources for teaching as well as lots of learning games, videos, and much more. Students have had the opportunity to use this website at school and are encouraged to visit the site outside of school. The parent site, NetSmartz.org, also has many great resources for parents, teens, and 'tweens.
Children have so many opportunities to be online. They use computers, smart phones, mobile devices, etc. It is important that parents and teachers work together to teach children how to stay safe. Just as we teach children how to safely cross the street and about stranger danger, we need to teach them how to safely communicate online and about online dangers.
The purpose of this webpage is to share helpful information about technology with parents. If you have specific questions or comments, please contact me. -Jason Durheim Park Elementary Technology Integration Specialist and TechTime Teacher |