Student Centers – 5 Minute Makeovers

Before break, I was talking to a teacher that was frustrated with her computer center. The students would go to the computer during centers time and then would go immediately back to her to ask which icon they need to click on. No matter whether she showed them on the projector, used sticky notes, or elaborate directions, a large portion of students needed more assistance when it was time to begin their activity. Icons can be confusing to students. Icons are small and many have similar graphics.So… here are four things you can do to make your computer more student-friendly for centers. Give your student computers a “5 Minute Makeover.” – use purposeful wallpaper – delete (or folder) extra icons – increase the font size– make One Place the home page for explorerThese wallpapers were created to make centers easier for students to comprehend which resource they should access first, or which resources they can choose from. If you see wallpaper that works for you, click on it, then right-click on the image and “set as wallpaper.” Also, feel free to download an image and edit it to meet your needs.This wallpaper will be much more useful if the majority of shortcuts and desktop icons are deleted. This will make it very obvious to students where they should begin. Have only the icons students should be accessing that day/week on the desktop. If you aren’t comfortable deleting the icons, just make a new folder and slip them into it. If the icons are snapping to the grid and aren’t lining up the way you’d like, you can turn the function off. Just right-click on the desktop, click on ” Arrange Icons by” and then uncheck “snap to grid.”Another great way to make the computer more student-friendly is to increase the font size on the computer (Thanks Kim!). You can do that by right-clicking on the desktop, choosing “properties,” clicking on the “appearance” tab and adjusting the font size.Finally, make One Place the home page for Internet Explorer. All of the online resources that they will need to access can be found on this page. To set it as the home page, do this. Open Internet Explorer, click on “Internet Options,” and the “General” tab. Type in http://discovery.aps.k12.co.us into the box. All set, click, “ok.”In just 5 minutes you can turn your classroom student computers into fun and focused centers.