Greetings All !
I'm going to be our school's Computer Teacher and Computer Coordinator next 
year.  This will be a BIG change from my former position (teaching 7th grade 
Science) !
I'll admit that my computer experience is all self-taught or taught to me by 
friends since High School.  I've had precious little formal training, but I'm 
working on getting some right now.
I'd like to hear everyone's ideas and comments related to the following 
issues I will be facing next year. (And these are just for starters...)
1)  The class I will be teaching is "Computer Technology".  There is no 
formal curriculum or, as far as I know, books !  However, we DO have a nice 
lab of about 50 LC III's, 475's and 580's.  Five are even connected to the 
Internet (though I've been struggling for months to get the district to send 
us the cabling to connect another forty or so machines).  The class is to be 
a semester long... plus I can expect at least one class of 6th graders, one 
of 7th, and one of 8th each year.
I'd like to hear some comments on what I should focus my teaching on. Perhaps 
you can tell me what other people in similar situations are doing ?
2) Towards the end of this year, I was able to take a few classes up to the 
computers and use a few particular programs to enhance the units of other 
teachers on my team.  While we were there, I could see that student behavior 
would still be a fairly-major problem.  It's amazing how some of them just 
want to "goof around" or test the limits of the rules.
I'd like to hear some ideas on classroom management of computer labs.
3) The classroom I will use currently has about 50 computers and chairs. I'd 
like to see about half of the computers taken out and put into individual 
teachers' classrooms.  With the new space, I'd like to see desks put in.  
Partly because I can see I'm going to have to compete with the machines quite 
a bit for the students' attention... and partly because I'd like to be able 
to take the kids away from the computers should their behavior not meet 
expectations.
Your thoughts on this ?
4) In my efforts to "cram" for fall, I'd like to find some useful Internet 
newsgroups or mailing lists where Technology Coordinators or Computer 
Teachers chat and just throw out idea on what works and what doesn't.  Any 
ideas ?
Thats all for now !
Thanks !
-= David Raasch =-
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