Have You Been to the Resource Center?
Come take a tour of the new Hub Resource Center. Discover how TechnoKids resources can help you to choose courses, plan curriculum, and teach technology skills. Using your trial account with free online courses for children, you will have easy access to all these practical instructional tools. Let us do the work for you in creating valuable classroom support materials, so that you have more time to focus on your students.
What Is the Resource Center?
The Resource Center can be found in the Options Pane when you first open your Welcome Window. Look on the left to find the Resource Center icon.
Here you’ll find a collection of useful resources, including:
- TechnoKids Project Matrix/Scope and Sequence Chart
- Correlation Documents for Curriculum Standards
- Program Tool Summaries
- Flashcards
Here’s a quick introduction to each, and how you can use these course materials right away to make your teaching both easier and more effective.
TechnoKids Project Matrix/Scope and Sequence Chart
TechnoKids has over 40 courses. When you are designing a curriculum unit, use the Project Matrix to select a project to teach. This document arranges the courses by grade level and organizes them into a proposed sequence. It also provides a brief description of each title, lists the software used, and summarizes the technology skills targeted in that course.
Use the project matrix to easily plan a single project, schedule the term, choose projects for multiple grades, or design the whole school year curriculum.
Curriculum Standards Correlation
In a previous article, we described the new curriculum standards feature of Hub. Within a course, teachers can click on any assignment to view the standards achieved with that specific task.
But here’s another way to access standards alignment. Documents for ISTE, Common Core English, and Common Core Math list the standards that each TechnoKids course meets. In this format, courses at similar grade levels can be compared in one comprehensive chart.
For example, if you want to teach your Grade 3-5 students to be model and responsible digital citizens, find the Digital Citizen standard with its subparts in the ISTE correlation document. Then pick a course that meets the specific standards you need. Hint: TechnoRace achieves all four standards.
Or if your middle school classes need to focus on collaboration, look at the ISTE Global Collaborator standard. TechnoDebate meets all four of the standards for this category.
Program Tools, Coding Summaries, and Flashcards
Toolbar Summary
For every software app used by TechnoKids courses – Microsoft Office, Google, Adobe, and more – you can download a toolbar summary. It shows every tool icon, its name, and its use. There are summaries for Adobe, Microsoft Office, Google, Scratch, and more! They can be used:
- as a support document for learners
- to introduce new program tools
- review previously used tools
- to get to know the features of a program
Coding Summaries
Programming courses such as TechnoTurtle, TechnoPython, and TechnoHTML5 provide additional resources for new coders. Coding summaries list handy summaries of commonly used tags or code. Students can use these ‘tip sheets’ as a quick reference guide.
Flashcards
Flashcards are large, colorful cards for every tool in an app. They can be printed and laminated. They have a variety of applications:
- for students to use as hands-on manipulative materials
- by teachers to introduce new skills
- on bulletin board displays
Here’s an example: when programming with Scratch, students first work together offline to plan scripts. They manipulate and stack the flashcards to build sequencing blocks for a series of events. Afterwards, they apply their learning as they work individually on computer to test their code.
A few years ago, TechnoKids thought that flashcards might not be a useful resource anymore, so we stopped including them. We were wrong! Teachers reached out and told us how valuable flashcards are in the computer classroom. They asked for them to be brought back. We listened, and now you can find a full set of flashcards in the Resource Center for each software application – ready to download whenever you need them!
Free Online Courses for Children and UDL
Universal Design for Learning is a set of guidelines “to improve and optimize teaching and learning”. Teachers use these principles to ensure that learning is equitable and inclusive for all students. UDL recognizes that learners have different needs, skills, and perspectives. Therefore the learning environment should be designed to avoid any barriers and accommodate these differences.
The tools in the Resource Center in TechnoHub support the design of effective, diverse instruction and learning in the classroom. Here are some of the benefits of using curriculum standards documents, flashcards, and tool summaries to support UDL:
- offer diverse ways to perceive information
- understand the goals of learning
- monitor progress
- give access to assistive tools
- encourage creativity
Sign up for Free Online Courses for Children
There’s still time! If you would like to receive free access to TechnoHub and free online resources for children, sign up for a trial account here. You will get actual computer science assignments from TechnoKids courses that you can start using with your students right away. Plus, you’ll be able to download any materials from the Resource Center to help with curriculum planning and classroom activities. The new TechnoHub is better than ever, designed to make supporting your teaching more seamless, efficient, and impactful.