Asher Holmes was the first elementary school in the district to have a computer lab when we began the pilot program in 1989/90 school year. The program has grown steadily with the sophistication of the students since that opening day with 15 Apple IIe computers.
Currently the lab program serves students in grades three, four, five, and six with a structured program designed to improve student writing, sharpen math logic and reasoning skills, and help students learn to locate and manage data needed in their content area studies. Primary students may visit the lab for projects when their teacher arranges times. Teachers may also arrange to use the portable writing lab of 25 AlphaSmart word processors in their classroom.
In third grade students begin the year with a literacy unit which introduces the students to computer vocabulary, hardware components and software basics. Students also learn the basics of what goes on inside a computer and a disc and learn about the science involved in making everything work. They are then introduced to keyboarding and throughout the year they practice for speed and accuracy using Type To Learn software from Sunburst and Speedskins which cover the keyboard for practice sessions. Fourth graders are introduced to word processing as a tool to help them with the writing process and come to the lab weekly with their language arts teacher for the first part of the year. Database studies are next on their schedule. Science/Social Studies teachers bring their classes to the lab as students learn to create databases to organize their own data and to research the 50 states using a database prepared for them. In the spring all fourth graders get a brief introduction to spreadsheets with their math teacher.
The fifth and sixth grade programs are less structured because students have received the basics and can more readily use the computer in many ways to help them with different tasks. Content area teachers schedule lab time each week for their language arts, science, social studies, or math classes to work on projects as the need arises. Students learn clip art and formatting techniques to complement their writing process projects and go more deeply into spreadsheets and databases.
In addition to the spreadsheet, database, and word processing activities, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classes can use the Internet for research or utilize content area software.
