My First Comment From a Student! :))

I'm so excited today, because this Blog finally received its very first comment posted by a student this afternoon! See the comment link for the "Self Portrait" posting for details. :)

This really wasn't a surprise to me, because three of my students actually huddled together on the carpet in front of my laptop and posted the comment, almost collaboratively, right next to me. Since not all of them have a computer at home nor do they get much of an opportunity to use a computer at school, I first showed them a few basic moves for navigating around the site. After reading some of my postings, Jonathan, the artist of the boy portrait from the "Self Portrait" posting, decided to post a comment about his own portrait.

Aside from feeling overwhelmed with internal joy as I watched the students showing so much interest and desire to participate on this blog, I felt even more rewarded as I watched the three of them talk about how to spell "violin", whether "play" should be in past tense, or how to form the next sentence entirely. With no official training for typing, their three sets of eyes were also much more effective at spotting these randomly scattered letters on the keyboard.

This was such a treat! Thank you Jonathan, Alejandra and Alexa!

A side note, whenever I've had the chance to work with kids using computers, the urge to teach them how to type always immediately rush to mind. Watching their little index fingers trying to find the randomly scattered letters on a keyboard is a 'itching' sensation. I can't help but to get an instant reminder that typing is a skill that needs to be taught and learned. With computers playing such a huge role in our lives today, I often take the ability to type efficiently for granted. I learned how to type when I was in 9th grade. But back then, computers weren't as a big part of learning and life as it is today. Now that it is, shouldn't we consider teaching this enabling skill much earlier?