Ok here is my 2 cents. I have taught kids in cities, those with very little english, and the priveliged kids from the "burbs" Honestly I will take the city kids any day.
Spend a little time and get to know the kids. Ask them what they want to learn, you may be surprised that they will have some good ideas. Be prepared for kids to figure out new ways to do things, and to teach you in the process, it always happens because they are absolutely fearless. Also be prepared to spend some time at the end of each day cleaning up after them...
What you do will depend very much on the age of the kids, obviously you aren't going to teach 1st graders the same thing as 5th graders.
Teach them the names of everything you use (monitor, mouse, keyboard, floppy drive etc. as well as terminology - double click means push the button on the mouse 2 times before you move it.) This may sound dumb, but they will never admit that they don't know, and it will save you some hassle later on.
A good lesson has some objective: At the end of this class the kids will be able to ____. (Open, close and save without help) If you decide ahead of time what you want them to get out of it, it will help to keep you focused.
K-1 love to draw, teach them how to use a simple paint program (Kid Pix is really popular with schools) Show them how to flip and rotate, copy and paste, let them create. They will learn mouse control and have cool stuf to take home to mom and dad to show them what they made. You can put all their pictures in a Hypercard stack or in a Kid Pix Slide show. Think simple, many of these kids will never have seen a mouse. Stupid things like writing their name in 30 different fonts and sizes on a page are "so cool" to them, and again it is something to take home. They aren't really ready developmentally at this age to do any serious programming...
2-3 I have used Netscape Composer with kids this age and had them create their own web pages. This will even work if you don't have access to the net, and it is very engaging. Have them choose their own topic, create their own graphics and learn how to make links. Also more of the same above, anything visual is always good.
4-5 Now you are getting to the age where kids can learn some basic programming, LOGO is great, but so is any basic spreadsheet. Have them collect data, (it doesn't matter how goofy it is, what color shirts everyone is wearing, tie shoes or velcro?) and put it into a spreadsheet, graph the data. There are ton's of things you can do with a spreadsheet program and it is a skill that the kids can take with them.
Sad as it is, in order to survive in today's world kids need keyboarding skills. Don't think that you are dooming them to life as a secretary just because you teach them to word process, after all, how much typing do you do in a day?
You really don't have to worry about losing kids and having them be bored, just sitting at a keyboard is intriguing enough to keep most kids engaged for hours. I have had great success in really large classes pairing kids up at a computer. One at the keyboard, one as mentor. This keeps them both actively involved. Switch them about every 15 minutes. It also cuts down on the amount of time you spend running around fixing little problems, the kids will tend to talk to each other and figure out things on their own.
Sometimes it is good to just let them play. Kids need time just to experiment, and this is often a good way to find out what you need to teach them. (as long as you are willing to fix any problems that arise)
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Ok here is my 2 cents. I have taught kids in cities, those with very little english, and the priveliged kids from the "burbs" Honestly I will take the city kids any day.
Spend a little time and get to know the kids. Ask them what they want to learn, you may be surprised that they will have some good ideas. Be prepared for kids to figure out new ways to do things, and to teach you in the process, it always happens because they are absolutely fearless. Also be prepared to spend some time at the end of each day cleaning up after them...
What you do will depend very much on the age of the kids, obviously you aren't going to teach 1st graders the same thing as 5th graders.
Teach them the names of everything you use (monitor, mouse, keyboard, floppy drive etc. as well as terminology - double click means push the button on the mouse 2 times before you move it.) This may sound dumb, but they will never admit that they don't know, and it will save you some hassle later on.
A good lesson has some objective: At the end of this class the kids will be able to ____. (Open, close and save without help) If you decide ahead of time what you want them to get out of it, it will help to keep you focused.
K-1 love to draw, teach them how to use a simple paint program (Kid Pix is really popular with schools) Show them how to flip and rotate, copy and paste, let them create. They will learn mouse control and have cool stuf to take home to mom and dad to show them what they made. You can put all their pictures in a Hypercard stack or in a Kid Pix Slide show. Think simple, many of these kids will never have seen a mouse. Stupid things like writing their name in 30 different fonts and sizes on a page are "so cool" to them, and again it is something to take home. They aren't really ready developmentally at this age to do any serious programming...
2-3 I have used Netscape Composer with kids this age and had them create their own web pages. This will even work if you don't have access to the net, and it is very engaging. Have them choose their own topic, create their own graphics and learn how to make links. Also more of the same above, anything visual is always good.
4-5 Now you are getting to the age where kids can learn some basic programming, LOGO is great, but so is any basic spreadsheet. Have them collect data, (it doesn't matter how goofy it is, what color shirts everyone is wearing, tie shoes or velcro?) and put it into a spreadsheet, graph the data. There are ton's of things you can do with a spreadsheet program and it is a skill that the kids can take with them.
Sad as it is, in order to survive in today's world kids need keyboarding skills. Don't think that you are dooming them to life as a secretary just because you teach them to word process, after all, how much typing do you do in a day?
You really don't have to worry about losing kids and having them be bored, just sitting at a keyboard is intriguing enough to keep most kids engaged for hours. I have had great success in really large classes pairing kids up at a computer. One at the keyboard, one as mentor. This keeps them both actively involved. Switch them about every 15 minutes. It also cuts down on the amount of time you spend running around fixing little problems, the kids will tend to talk to each other and figure out things on their own.
Sometimes it is good to just let them play. Kids need time just to experiment, and this is often a good way to find out what you need to teach them. (as long as you are willing to fix any problems that arise)
Hope this helps!