Tchefuncte Middle School
Computer Lab

Teaming Up For Success!

• Last week of classes- Just 4 days of classes left before summer vacation! We will not be using the regular schedule, as the computer lab is reserved for Tech Night Participants. See the following table for the new schedule. Remember to bring your computer lab folders to class.

  	Mon, 5/21	Tue, 5/22	Wed, 5/23	Thur, 5/24
  8:15-9:15	Foley	Durrett	Jourdan	Maguire
  9:15-10:15	Estes	Gator Gathering	Ripoll	Marino
  10:15-11:15	cultural assembly	Gator Gathering	Carney
  11:15-12:00	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
  12:00-1:00	Boudreaux	Gendusa	Margavio
  1:00-2:00	Kottemann	Nolinske	Lovell
  2:00-3:00	Conner	Loomis	Windom

04/30/07:

• Students: Grades 4-6 will continue to explore the new Ebsco resource. Great tool for online researching.
• Teachers: Check out the new links on the teacher webpage for great online tools such as the free generators for lesson plans, rubrics, checklists, and pdf documents.

04/04/07:

• Tech Night 2007- we had a good show of support for this year's Tech Night. It was nice meeting parents and seeing students get so excited about searching for answers for their scavenger hunt. My theme this year was interactive websites. If anyone knows of any good ones for middle school students (which I haven't listed on the Tech Night webpage), please email me your suggestions.

03/23/07:

• Students: Congratulations on working hard and finishing your tests this week. We will be starting back in the computer lab next week, so please remember to bring your computer lab folder to class. Have a nice weekend!
• Teachers: More links have been added to the teacher links webpage, such as info about copyright and professional development. If you're in need of CLU's, graduate credit, and/or a stipend, check out LEH's Teacher Institutes for Advanced Study which begin again this summer. Also, check out this educational database, Merlot.org, which I've just discovered. It's a place where you can easily lose hours, so be careful :)

03/17/07:

• The new Accelerated Reader website, Renaissance Place, has been added to the computer lab website. Your teacher has your username & password.
• New links have been added to the teacher links webpage.

02/07/07:

• Black History Month- Currently, students are finishing up projects from previous lessons and starting activities to celebrate Black History Month. Topics include the Underground Railroad, New Orleans musicians, etc.
• Internet Safety- Most classes have had an "Internet Safety" lesson. Click here to read the rules that were covered in class. If you'd like to read more about Internet safety, consider the following links:
  • LA Attorney General Charles C. Foti, Jr's CyberSafety webpage. Mr. Foti also offers a list of popular acronyms that kids use while online to help parents get informed.
  • You can report inappropriate material that's been sent to your child at CyberTipline.com, a service of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
  • In class, we discussed how safe surfing can help to prevent identity theft. Click here to find out more information about internet fraud, such as hacking, phishing, and id theft. This site, courtesy of the USPS & FBI also has a "Consumer Alerts" webpage and a place to file a complaint. Click here for more information from the USPS.
• Cyberbullying- Some classes read an interview with Shaquille O'Neal and his interest in speaking out about cyberbullying, an illegal form of bullying that's done with the use of technology, such as cell phones or the Internet.
  • Click here to read the Shaquille O'Neal interview, courtesy of Scholastic News Online.
  • Click here for a cyberbully article on PTA.org
  • Click here for more information about cyberbullying.

11/11/06:

• Most classes have signed up for LA Pass, which is an interactive website that prepares students for any upcoming standardized testing, such as the iLeap. LA Pass is for 3rd grade through high school students and it offers four areas of study: English, math, science, & social studies.
• 4th - 6th grade: Don't forget to bring your folder to computer lab. Note: Unless your teacher has requested a specific type of folder, any folder will do, as I would like you to keep a portfolio of your computer lab work.

Saving Work:

• Students are taught about saving their work to the tms-server, but this is not a fail-safe approach. Occasionally, files get moved or erased.
• Students are welcome to bring floppy disks to class to save back-up copies of their work.
• We even have usb access on the front of each computer, so flash/thumb/jump drives are also a possibility. These items are not required by me but are welcome in the lab and I'm more than happy to assist students in their use.
• Some of you may even get an email from me with an attachment of your child's work if they wish to continue at home. If so, I will put "TMS computer lab work" in the subject line.
• Unfortunately, there aren't any CD burners in the lab, but some of the teachers do have a CD burner on their classroom computer. If your child asks for a CD to burn their work, please give them a CD-RW. A CD-RW allows work to be edited and saved to it again, whereas a CD-R only allows work to be burned to it once.