Hello BDF family, I hope all have had a wonderful summer break! This first week of school in all of my primary classes we will be going over class rules and expectations, as well as practice signing in with our usernames and passwords. My goal this year is to ensure that all students will be able to do this without assistance to further their technology literacy, better learn their letters and numbers (and casing), and to eventually be able to speed up the process in any class where this is necessary to have more time for learning. I don't grade on perfection, but moreso on the effort and patience they are learning with themselves and the technology.
Those that manage to sign-in will then be able to go through the steps to getting on out Canvas course (which requires the same exact log-in as the computers) to try out a class activity. For this week, the activity will be voxels, where they get to set building blocks digitally, change the colors, and create whatever they imagine using the tool. This not only is the most fun part for students, but it also gets them to practice hand eye coordination and increase their technical mastery of using a computer.
These activities will change/shuffle each week, but the sign-in will be a consistent part of the grade until the whole class has mastered it. All work can be done in class, I don't give homework for this grade level. However, students are more than welcome to play around with their favorite tools on a home device as long as they remember their log-in. Happy first week back to school everyone. If you have any concerns reach out to me on my email (ainsworth.williams@pgcps.org).