Teaching ICT/Computers in Lab to 3rd/2nd Years help

Hulahoop2009

Ive been given the job of teaching IT to 2nd and 3rd years in a lab class. Does anybody know what to cover or what tasks to set them. Some of them are supossed to be able to do somethings like formatting in word others are not, due to cutbacks Ive been asked to take over but theres no curriculum from previous teacher or anything!!

All advice/help really appreciated with this as Ive only qualified in the past few years

Tom Dunne

One idea is to look at the ECDL sylabus - introduction to basic Microsoft Office apps, the Internet and computers in general.

If Office is not avaiable, use Open Office (www.openoffice.org) - it's free and can be downloaded both in the school and at home.

I find that the more creative the subject, the more students enjoy it. Specifically, Powerpoint - they can get very creative with it (pictures, colours, animations and sounds). At the end, you could get each of them to do a presentation up in front of the class on a topic that they pick.

rainbowtrout

As there is no curriculum it will vary from school to school. I normally have one or two classes for computers every year, and I take a different topic each term so the students can get a good basic grounding in the different Office programs. September - Halloween I'm doing Spreadsheets with my second years. November - Christmas, I'll be doing Databases. January - Easter, Word Processing and Easter - Summer Powerpoint. I'll probably stick in some internet along the way as well.

If there are any books lying around with exercises on the different applications they would be useful for class.

Hulahoop2009

Thank you both - you have been so helpful, its just great to get some feedback, wasnt sure what level I should be aiming at, great to know what others are doing and where to look.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.:)

wingnut

MDL is a good one:
http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/citizenship/giving/programs/up/digitalliteracy/default.mspx

Hulahoop2009

Great - thank you for that website also