7th Computers

7th Grade Computers Curriculum


  • Keyboarding Skills (Weekly)
    • Review proper hand and body position during keyboarding. Review and quiz over the guide keys (f/j), the home row, top row, bottom row, and number row.
    • Start each keyboarding class session with warm-ups on the board or TV/projector screen.
      • These warm-ups should focus on the keyboarding skills in progression (home row, top row, bottom row, shift key, numbers, symbols, paragraphs).
      • Warm-ups can be teacher-created or are available by searching online.
      • Students should have a blank document open. Use a stopwatch to time one minute and tell them when to start and stop. Monitor and correct typing form. At the end of the minute, have students use the Word Count feature to check their words typed. Do each warm-up twice and have students record their highest score to track progress; to stress accuracy, they must record a zero if they make ANY mistakes!
      • Warm-ups are not graded and no-peeks are not used.
    • Use the available typing program and work through it sequentially. Students should be given checkpoint lessons that will be graded when the student gets to them. Some students will get to the checkpoint lessons sooner than others. To give extra time for slower students to reach the checkpoints, have extra keyboarding lessons, games, or activities available.
      • Suggested extra activities: keybr.com, NitroType, any games focusing on keyboarding skills
      • Keyboarding grades should be a combination of words per minute and accuracy. Determine a grading scale with the goal words per minute set as the 100% mark and score down from there. Average this percent with the accuracy percent from the typing program for the checkpoint grade (if a student scores 90% accuracy and is at the 100% mark for wpm, the recorded score will be 95%) The goal wpm for 7th grade is 37.
  • Computer Skills : Focus on using Google Drive programs either on Chromebooks or Internet-accessible computers in a lab. The teacher should use Google Classroom to assign projects, and the students should turn in their projects there for the teacher to grade and return online.
    • Google Documents: open a new document, name documents, use document templates, format type, format margins, insert images from Google Drive and Google Search, insert headers and footers, insert tables, insert drawings and word art, create letterheads, using bullets and outlines, change line spacing, inserting special characters, aligning text
    • Google Drawing: open a new drawing, insert shapes and lines, send objects to the front and back, insert word art, use images to create diagrams and graphic organizers, inserting text into shapes
    • Google Sheets: open a new sheet, use headings on columns and labels on rows, use formulas to find sums and averages, add borders, understand terminology (cells, rows, columns, tabs at the bottom, headings, labels), widen and narrow columns, copy and paste information using the Edit menu and CTRL shortcuts, add multiple sheet tabs to one open sheet, change names on tabs, format information in cells, use the $ in the toolbar to format columns using money, use the CTRL key to select columns and rows that are not adjoining, change color of cells and text
    • Google Charts (part of Google Sheets): insert a variety of charts using information on the sheet (line, pie, area, bar, column, scatter), add chart and axis titles, change formatting (color, font, size, background, legend location, etc.), insert multiple charts using different columns in the sheet, move the chart to its own sheet, copy and paste charts into documents
    • Google Slides: open a new slide show, add slides, change themes, change backgrounds, format master slides, add transitions
    • Sharing, Commenting, and Editing in Google Drive: use the sharing feature to share a document with others (change access between view, comment, and edit), use the comment button to communicate with shared editors, use the edit feature to suggest revisions, respond to comments and revision suggestions, resolve comments and revisions when done
    • Internet Literacy: evaluating the validity and reliability of websites, citing online sources when using information and pictures, Internet safety (protecting information online, phishing), research methods (Advanced Google Search and scholar.google.com), netiquette when responding online (teacher-created edublog can create posts for students to practice proper responses)