This last week, your young scholars worked on formatting characters, words and blocks of text within a document. They also learned how to make lists with bullet points, numbered lists and multi-tiered lists. A fun task they took on was to create their own bullet point graphics. They also learned to set tab stops eliminating tab keystrokes and still have nicely lined columns.
This coming week, students are going to learn more about and execute formatting document properties including but not limited to working with document formatting; changing paper size, orientation, and margins; inserting page and section breaks; work with columns of text; insert page numbers, insert headers and footers; apply themes or change backgrounds. To completely wrap up this week, students will need to update their Create project. I will update the requirements for the create project on Wednesday. I highly encourage you to ask your young scholar to see their Create project. This is not only a portfolio project where they are learning to use the lessons they learned in “real life”, but also how to be good digital citizens and protect themselves online. As we are mid-quarter, parents, I encourage you to look at your students grades with them. Focus especially on the progress, behavior and create needs. Parents, not only am I teaching your children the requirements to earn a professional certification but also professional courtesy, behavior and project requirements. As you know, in the professional world, deadlines are commonplace. They are expectations of an employer that a staff member can be relied upon to meet objectives and execute their assigned duties. If your student has missed deadlines, they have a participation or create score that reflects their level of contribution or (in)ability to meet a deadline. I ask you to emphasize the importance of meeting deadlines and encourage them to do so. Another aspect is proper behavior. Usually, when disciplinary action is required, it comes in the form of verbal warning, written warning, final notice and then, many times, termination. In my class, each student begins the week with 10 behavior points. If I have to address behavior(s), they get the symbolic warnings and notices. Then I begin to take points away. If your student has less than 10 points, in any behavior category, I encourage you to speak to them and solicit their response as to why they lost points and went beyond “final notice”. I ask you to encourage them to pursue full marks in behavior. Again, as we are mid-quarter, students have an opportunity to maintain positive performance and an opportunity to change to a positive performance if needed. I appreciate your continued support of our students and the training they are undertaking in my class. Have a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday. Please feel free to email me should you have any questions.
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Hello Titan Students and Parents,
Today is a “Great Day to Have a Great Day.” I want you to know how hard your students worked this week learning how to manipulate documents and streamline tasks. On Tuesday, students learned how to insert special characters like Registered®, Copyright© and Trademark™ using keyboard shortcuts and by using the insert tab and navigating to the symbols and characters menus. Finally, they learned about the undo and redo buttons. Undo tends to be a favorite 😉. Wednesday, students learned how to navigate throughout documents using a variety of methods including read mode, print mode, web mode and viewing documents through a split screen. They also learned how to change zoom levels and display multiple pages on the screen. Once completed we moved on to learning how to select text. This was accomplished by using the left click on a track pad or mouse and in combination with the CTRL and Shift keys. They also learned that a double click on a word would select that word and a triple-click would select the whole paragraph. All of these lessons help to improve the efficiency of tasks that students are charged to complete. Keeping that in mind, on Thursday, students learned to navigate through documents and search for key words, paragraph marks or special symbols. They also learned to find and replace text within a document sometimes replacing one instance, sometimes replacing all instances. Lastly, they learned to find a piece or pieces of text and replace that text with the same words but with new formatting which could include a different font type, size, color or styling. This coming week we will begin to learn a lot more about styling including but not exclusive to the format characters within the document like drop caps, tab stops, indent first line and similar formatting themes. We will also work on changing line spacing including lines, pica's and points before and/or after a line of text. We will also learn how to use the format painter. Another experience we will undertake is using the styles menu and making custom styles. Lastly, we will learn how to organize lists with bullet points, numbered lists and students will get to learn how to customize bullet point graphics. To completely wrap up this week, students will need to update their Create project. This week we will support this week’s lessons, by adding special characters to their paper; identifying social media organizations within their documents as Registered, Trademarked or Copyrighted or a combination of these. They will also have to search for those organizations and replace all instances with a bold, italicized and 12 point font. This is due by 8 A.M. Monday. I highly encourage you to ask your young scholar to see their Create project. This is not only a portfolio project where they are learning to use the lessons they learned in “real life”, but also how to be good digital citizens and protect themselves online. Please feel free to email me should you have any questions. Have a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday. Good afternoon Plato students and parents,
We survived and thrived in another week of learning and interacting within our new learning environments. We have settled nicely into a routine of quiz, lessons, post quiz and writing project. I am happy to let you parents and guardians know just how proud I am of your young scholars this week. They have learned to open, close, save and save-as documents. We have used a variety of keyboard shortcuts, quick access tools and our file menu as well. The students have also learned about the document backstage, information panel, properties and advanced properties. They also experienced a key exam step of importing text from file. Finally students got to learn about and experience rich text formatting (.rtf) and portable document format (.pdf) files. All students should have 9% progress and thus a 100% for their weekly progress grade. I encourage you to have your student log into the lab and show you their progress. As a reminder, to access the lab computers they need to go to https://remote.platoacademy.net Then they will use the username and password they set up in class. It is in my humble opinion that the most valuable lesson they learned this week was the importance of following the written directions. Even though there are multiple ways to achieve the tasks required, our software is very specific and counts for all steps. For example, it measures and grades capitalization, punctuation and specifics such as using “delete” vs. “backspace”. While this may seem to be petty, the bigger lesson is that students are learning attention to detail. As future applicants and potential employees, they won’t have to tell a prospective employer that they are detail oriented or that they “pay attention to details.” Those students that earn and put on their resumes “MOS” or “Microsoft Office Specialist” certifications will have already told that story. Employers know the rigors of this program and what it takes to earn this certification. As in other subjects, learning is only half of the challenge. The other component is applying what they have learned. So students are beginning their “Create” or portfolio project. Again, I encourage you to ask them what this project is all about. This week, they will be writing their four paragraphs about an important subject (online safety). They will be adding properties such as subject, title, author and keywords. As well, they will save the document as a Word .docx format and .pdf format. They will earn an extra point for saving additionally as a .rtf file. As this is a holiday weekend, I will be taking a break Saturday and Sunday to continue unpacking our home but I will occasionally check email and on Monday will check it more frequently for any questions that you young scholars or parents and guardians may have. I wish everyone a relaxing weekend and fun, safe holiday. I look forward to seeing everyone back in class on Tuesday and ready to learn again. By the way, should any student require or request one-on-one tutoring via google meet, I am happy to oblige. Just please allow me some advance warning so that I may arrange my schedule and I will get a calendar invite created. This may include weekends if needed. Thanks again class(es). Job well done, Good Sunday Evening Parents,
This was an exciting week for us, our students and their parents. We finally made it back to school in multiple formats. We have full on-site classes, blended and full online classes. No matter the format, it was my experience that students were excited to be back and learning once again. In Computer Science, students learned how to access the lab computers, create Jasperactive accounts and in some cases configure their student computers to the network. We also learned to activate our Microsoft accounts through the district for full access to the Microsoft suite. This is especially important as the district will be monitoring use and ensuring the utmost integrity in the use of the products. On Thursday students began their benchmark assessments (not graded) and showed what they know and what they have to learn. While I was encouraged by some higher levels of assessment, I am especially eager to mold those students that didn't feel as comfortable with the program. This week, we will undertake the first quiz and hone 3 specific skill sets that revolve around knowing Word. We will open, close and save documents. Once completed, students will have the opportunity to retake the quiz with a higher level of knowledge under their belt. I only record the highest quiz score. On Friday, students will have the opportunity to apply their learning to the first installment of their CREATE project. They will be responding to four prompts revolving around internet safety. They will be required to write a paragraph for each prompt and they also have to save the document in multiple formats. The only homework that will be assigned this week is if the student has not received 100 on the skill sets or if they haven't written the first installment of their CREATE project. If they are needing to practice at home, I will also have videos uploaded for them to review as well. If you have any questions, please reach out to me via this email address or through the contact form on my website. Remember, today is a great day to "Have a Great Day." Dear Students and Parents of Plato Academy Clearwater, Today is a great day to have “A Great Day”. Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year. I am so happy your young scholar has chosen to learn Microsoft Office and earn their opportunity to test to become certified Microsoft Office Specialist. This is my 2nd year at Plato Academy and I am excited to be here. This year I am teaching and introducing this program at Pinellas Park as well as continuing program growth my home campus of Clearwater. I was born and raised in Florida and am glad to be back as a permanent resident after 25 years in corporate America throughout the Southeast. You are invited to check your child’s progress at the parent portal on FOCUS and email me at [email protected] any time that you have a question. Every Friday, FOCUS is updated with the grades of the week. Our Middle School site is updated weekly with a student/parent email. My classroom site at Platocomputerscience.weebly.com is also updated. Because of the amount of information provided and the blended learning environment, I will also be posting video lessons weekly to the classroom site. Your student may access those videos to assist in completing homework and maintaining a strong cadence in deliverables. It is important that you and your child be informed of my standards of classroom behavior so everyone knows what is expected. I have always found parents to be very supportive of good classroom behavior so their child has a good environment for maximum learning. The Computer Science Program adheres to the following grading policy: Class Participation & Behavior 40% Weekly Lesson Progress (this includes homework if necessary) 30% Quizzes (There will be a quiz beginning and ending the week. The best score will be taken) 20% “Create” or portfolio 10% Our Grading Rubric is as follows; Rubric for Microsoft Office Training Exams are not counted for a grade. Because these are industry certifications, they are pass/fail. A minimum of 700/1000 points is required to pass the exam. Once the student has passed the Word, Excel and PowerPoint exams, they will have earned the Microsoft Office Specialist title and certification.
If your child develops any difficulty conforming to the rules, I will notify you either by email or a phone call, requesting to meet. I looking forward to another successful school year with your students at Plato Academy Clearwater. Many Thanks, Mr. Fuchs Dear Students and Parents of Plato Academy Clearwater, Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year. I am very happy to have your child in my classroom for the Greek Language program that Plato Academy offers. I believe that by all of us working together we can make this a very successful year. I consider it of prime importance that you be an active part of your child's education. This is my 3rd year at Plato Academy and I am excited to be here. I was born and rise in Greece and I moved to Florida in 2016 with my wife and two sons. You are invited to check your child’s progress at the parent portal on FOCUS and email me at [email protected] any time that you have a question. My school web page is updated weekly with all the upcoming information and will be covered in class with your child every Monday. Every Friday, FOCUS is updated with the grades of the week. It is important that you and your child be informed of my standards of classroom behavior so everyone knows what is expected. I have always found parents to be very supportive of good classroom behavior so their child has a good environment for maximum learning. Greek I and II adheres to the following grading policy: Class Participation & Behavior 45% Test and Quiz (Reading and spelling tests are weekly) 20% Projects 20% Homework 15% Mid Term and Final Tests (constitute 45% percent of the student’s semester course grade) If your child develops any difficulty conforming to the rules, I will notify you either by email or a phone call, requesting to meet. Looking forward to another successful school year at Plato Academy Clearwater. Thank you – Ευχαριστώ Giorgos Benakis Dear Students and Parents of Plato Academy Clearwater, Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year. I am very happy to have your child in my classroom for the Greek Language program that Plato Academy offers. I believe that by all of us working together we can make this a very successful year. I consider it of prime importance that you be an active part of your child's education. This is my 2nd year at Plato Academy and I am excited to be here. I was born and raised in Greece. I reside in the United States for the past 20 years.. I have been teaching for the past 8 years in afternoon Greek schools. I am very excited for this school year. You are invited to check your child’s progress at the parent portal on FOCUS and email me at [email protected] any time that you have a question. My school webpage is updated weekly with all the upcoming information and will be covered in class with your child every Monday. Every Friday, FOCUS is updated with the grades of the week. It is important that you and your child be informed of my standards of classroom behavior so everyone knows what is expected. I have always found parents to be very supportive of good classroom behavior so their child has a good environment for maximum learning. Sixth grade adheres to the following grading policy: Class Participation & Behavior 45% Test and Quiz (Reading and spelling tests are weekly) 20% Projects 20% Homework 15% Mid Term and Final Tests (constitute 45% percent of the student’s semester course grade) If your child develops any difficulty conforming to the rules, I will notify you either by email or a phone call, requesting to meet. Looking forward to another successful school year at Plato Academy Clearwater. Thank you – Ευχαριστώ Gioula Alimonos. Dear Students and Parents of Plato Academy Clearwater, Welcome to the 2020-2021 school year. I am very happy to have your child in my classroom for the Greek Language program that Plato Academy offers. I believe that by all of us working together we can make this a very successful year. I consider it of prime importance that you be an active part of your child's education. This is my 13th year at Plato Academy and my 23nd year overall teaching. I moved to Florida in 2006 with my wife and daughter and have enjoyed Florida life. I am a teacher from the Greek government and have a BA in Education from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens Greece. You are invited to check your child’s progress at the parent portal on FOCUS and email me at [email protected] any time that you have a question. My school web page is updated weekly with all the upcoming information and will be covered in class with your child every Monday. Every Friday, FOCUS is updated with the grades of the week. It is important that you and your child be informed of my standards of classroom behavior so everyone knows what is expected. I have always found parents to be very supportive of good classroom behavior so their child has a good environment for maximum learning. Greek I and II adheres to the following grading policy: Class Participation & Behavior 45% Test and Quiz (Reading and spelling tests are weekly) 20% Projects 20% Homework 15% Mid Term and Final Tests (constitute 45% percent of the student’s semester course grade) If your child develops any difficulty conforming to the rules, I will notify you either by email or a phone call, requesting to meet. Looking forward to another successful school year at Plato Academy Clearwater. Thank you – Ευχαριστώ Konstantinos Aretis |
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