Hi Bob,
A few more reactions:
->              Spreadsheets
For the spreadsheets, I'd suggest you coordinate with the math and/or
science teacher and do some sort of interdisciplinary unit/project to
make use of the spreadsheet more meaningful.
->              Graphics
Given the length of your list, I'd probably scratch this one. You're
already thinking of pursuing graphs with the spreadsheet, right? I mean,
the most I might do is include the use of the (I think it's called)
Paintbrush utility in the Accessories menu under Windows. This might be
fun for a bit of cut&paste practice with the Word Processor.
->             Electronic Communications
->
->          Students should know what a modem is and be familiar with
->    simple communication programs.
->
->     1 - Knowing what a baud rate is,
->
->     2 - What ascii files ,and, binary files are
->
->     3 - How to upload and download files
->
->     4 - be familiar with  basic  networking commands
->              ( login , logout, password )
->
->     5 -
->
->     Note - The concept of a school community BBS run by the sixth
->            grade is worth exploring.
The concept of a 6th grade BBS run by the students is definitely worth
pursuing, and the kids would learn a lot from it. But, personally, I
think it would change the entire focus of your class and you'd have to
get rid of a lot of your ideas about Keyboarding, Wordprocessing, etc...
simply due to lack of time. Maybe doing it as an after school or lunch
time club would be more feasible for those kids who are interested?
->                       The Internet
You have internet access for your students and the school isn't afraid
of what the kids might see on-line? I salute your admin. They are much
more progressive and forward thinking than mine.
->        7 - Produce HTML documents ( online project pages,
->            home pages ect)
This alone, under that category of Internet, sounds like a semester
course in itself. All the topics you have listed under Internet could
probably keep you and your kids busy for the whole year.
Sounds like you need to prioritize what you really want to cover, get
out a calendar and think realistically about what you have time to do.
I think that if you take a projects-based, interdisciplinary approach,
you could lightly touch on many of these ideas without covering them in
total mastery-of-concept depth. For instance, participate in a Math
forum project. The kids could learn how to connect to that Website, read
the problem, etc... don't make them learn all the technicalities about
baud rate, etc... let the discipline/content area be the focus and the
computer be the tool. As they work on the math project, let them use the
word processor and spreadsheet to do their work and then upload it back
to the Internet.
Well, just my thoughts. Hope they are helpful.
If you are interested in any Educational sites on the Web (especially
math related ones) let me know. My e-mail adress is cking@cyberg8t.com.
Of course, if you're already familiar with the Math Forum at
http://forum.swarthmore.edu, then you probably don't need any help
there.
Good luck,
Sheila
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