justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

“I can do it myself!”

“I can do it myself!” That’s what Renee said to me when we were starting our computer skills class, after the first week of school. Renee was a tiny, four-year old, in a pre-K class at Atalaya Elementary School in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Last year, I was blessed with teaching 12 classes of elementary students, making good use of our 32 Apple desktops. It was one of the most enjoyable teaching opportunities I’ve had in my 35-plus years teaching children and adults, in a great variety of settings.

As most parents and teachers know, one reality faced by young computer users is having to wait for someone to help them log in or to get them to a site where they want to go - either to play a computer game or practice basic skills.

I found that even though many four-year olds can’t read too well, I could easily teach them to maneuver their cursor to the URL bar at the top of their screen, where clicking on the mouse would turn the bar blue, and from there they could type in PBS (or ABCYA), taking them to a site containing a variety of games. (A real value of the benefit of cookies.) It was such a case when Renee clicked on the URL line, made it blue, typed in PBS, and was taken to PBS Kids, a site where she could practice her keyboarding skills. 

Speaking of computer skills, I also served as a proctor during the 11^th grade common core testing process in high school. I was sorry to observe that far too many students were just clicking through many answers, just guessing, or maybe just unsure of the process to respond to the questions. Many of these teenagers hadn’t learned the basic keyboarding skills that Renee was well on her way to mastering.

Learning the simple skills of maneuvering the mouse and using keystrokes effectively are critical to everyone for establishing comfort working their way through commands and options on the computer screen.

P.S. As I also work with seniors interested in re-entering the job market, there is similar value in learning these basic skills of maneuvering around the screen and mastering the keyboard to “catch up” or “keep up” with the younger generations.