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Kidpix was one of the first programs I've ever messed around with on school computers. I loveeed the sound effects and stickers there were and would just fill up the canvas with it. -
I was introduced to Animal Jam around 3rd grade by friends, and we would fight for computer time during recess to play together. (I still sometimes play the game haha). It taught me social skills and media literacy in the form of in-game objectives and social interactions within the game itself. As well as a bit of point and click with digital devices. -
4th grade was one of the first exposures to computers I had in grade school. We had weekly computer lessons where we got to play on this game called Type To Learn 2. We would get keyboard covers and have to progress through the game lessons and learn typing that way. I would say it was very effective, and my WPM averages around 70-90 now, with very good and efficient typing habits. (The ice and rover levels gave me SO MUCH STRESS. And I struggled a lot with my c, v, b" keys. -
In 5th grade, my teacher had us create weekly presentations based on topics and themes we were interested in! It taught me a lot in terms of how to use Google Presentations (to type on there, to format things, to spice things up and make the theming/visuals interesting). Eventually, some of the students leveled up and discovered other presentation applications such as Prezi, so we had a lot of fun trying to best each other in creating fun presentations. -
I think I got introduced to Google Classroom pretty late (I know current elementary schools use GClassroom as early as 4th grade, but during my time, technology wasn't that present in the average household, we still had homework planners and friday folders ha!) This was groundbreaking because assignments could be accessed easily and all in one place -
I remember that by roughly 7th grade, Google Docs was used more commonly in the classroom for assignments, such as for essay planning/writing -
Mostly in my Spanish classes, the teachers utilized Kahoot as a way to learn Spanish better and practice faster response intuition -
Mrs. Cypert, my 8th grade Language Arts teacher, had each of us create our own blogs on Blogspot, and she would provide topics for us to write about weekly. Not only did we have to learn the technicalities of how to publish blogs, but I also remember such an activity driving my self-reflection at the time, and wondering about things about myself that I hadn't thought of before. -
By 9th grade, entire classrooms would have access to their own laptops. My Biology and Lit teachers had us take tests and quizzes online during class. -
By 10th grade, I had my own phone to bring to school, and even personal laptop, with a drawing tablet for Character Design Club. In robotics, I learned Autodesk CAD, and in CDC, I learned how to use drawing applications, starting my digital drawing journey.