SK> You are the lab tech at your school this year, 
 SK> right? Do you get all the
 SK> students for one period instruction each day? So you have an actual
 SK> course to teach? You try to select activities to support the subject
 SK> area teachers, or you just do your own thing? If 
 SK> you are doing something
 SK> along the lines I've described here, then it is 
 SK> very different from what
 SK> we will be doing at our high school.
Well, I am the lab instructor, here are some of the things I do:
1. Teach Keyboarding - HS wants the students keyboarding at 25 wpm so 
students don't have to take keyboarding - but 8th graders don't often take 
their learning seriously. I would say their average speed is about 15 wpm. I 
did not take business education in college, so my focus is not as strong as 
it should be for this area.
2. Teach WordPerfect 5.1 - I am supposed to be teaching Microsoft Works for 
Windows, the HS does not want me teaching WordPerfect. However, our lab only 
has 4 Win machines - my students love putting graphics with their projects -  
the old MS-Works for DOS doesn't do that.
 
I like to work with teachers on interdisciplinary projects, it is lots of fun 
and the students get to use their skills for a practical use, not something 
out of a book. When there are no cooperative teaching projects, I try to have 
the students create something they would like to keep.
a. Greeting Cards
b. Calendars
c. posters
d. papers to be used in their portfolios (cover sheets, etc.)
e. menus for their own cafes
f. anything else I can think up
 
Almost every 8th grade student comes to my class at least once a day.
There is no set curriculum in the state - nor has the district come up with 
one yet.
 
Every spring, one of the English teachers and I work on a poetry project, 
students make some pretty good booklets of poetry. She teaches most of the 
8th grade students (except for those in block schedules.
 
When all else fails, I teach standard office products, (letters, forms, 
memos, invoices, etc.). I also teach students the following:
1. How to behave around computers (an amazing # of students do not see 
anything wrong with horseplay in a lab)
2. Care of computers and other items (disks, etc.)
3. Vocabulary of computers and how things work in computers and on the 
etwork
4. Math, because computers work by counting, I have done introductory binary 
math - students are baffled at first by 0000 = 0, 0001 = 1, 0010 = 3, etc.
4. Science, discussion of electricity, switches, etc.
5. Computer History and its relation to history as a whole.
Students are amazed when I pull a computer apart to repair or add a card to 
it. Most have never seen a teacher work on equipment and very few have seen 
the naked computer. 
One student was looking at the motherboard of a computer, and said, "Looks 
like a city, the little wires look like streets and the chips look like 
buildings where work or storage is done". I told her that was an excellent 
analogy.
Soon we will have our bbs up and running, so they will have lots to learn, 
more rules, common sense, good manners, etc. will have to be discussed and 
learned.
 SK> It's great for you that
 SK> you are getting free stuff, but I am certain our 
 SK> admin wouldn't want to
 SK> set up an entire lab with this type of computer.
These surplus computers are going in teacher's classrooms, not the lab.
-> setting up. However, I do not know where the $ for such a goal will
-> come from--maybe grants?
 SK> There is a lot of information about grants, grant 
 SK> writing, and available
 SK> grants on the Web. I have no experience with 
I am writing a grant for a cooperative geometry project using LOGO. I will be 
working with both math teacher on a project.
I am on the school's grant writing team and we have done pretty good so far. 
I am looking for others though.
--- Maximus 2.02
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