10 Stages of How to Teach Computers to Children

1/ Prepare materials for teaching tomorrow morning

If tomorrow morning there is a teaching schedule, then at least tonight you have to prepare the material. Don't take it lightly because the children who will be taught are small children.

With the material ready the day before, the teacher will become more confident, and what is clear tomorrow morning when you enter the class or computer lab you don't have to think about what material will be given.

Teaching materials should be available coherently for one academic year, or at least for one semester. Remember, if you teach in the basic education unit, then you yourself have to make the arrangement of the teaching materials because in the basic education unit there are no computer subjects.

To compile teaching materials, you can copy the ICT syllabus in the 2006 KTSP curriculum, adjust the application used, and of course pay attention to intake. If you want the material to be easier and more coherent, then make a computer module, because with a computer learning module it becomes easier.

2/ Prepare the teaching tools

In addition to teaching tools consisting of teaching administration, such as daily attendance, lesson plans and syllabus, other tools needed to teach computers to children are hardware and software facilities.

Examples of hardware that – ideally – you should prepare include; complete computer equipment with installed applications that will be used for teaching, projectors, and of course books as reference sources.

Among these devices, the most important is the existence of a computer device.

Projectors are also important so that teachers can visualize the work steps that will be followed together by their students, but what is more important is the computer equipment. Projector problems can be solved by using a computer module, each student holds the module, the teacher just instructs to open so many pages, so many exercises, and students just follow the practical instructions in the module without having to be distracted by looking at the projector.

The title is that they want to teach computer subjects, students want to learn computer applications, so the main media is computer equipment, of course.

What if the computer equipment is not available, or the number is not proportional to the number of students? For cases like this, it is back to the technicalities of the teacher's practicum, for example, small groups are made with alternating practice schedules.

3/ Make sure the practice area is "ready"

Before practical activities, it is better if the teacher who will teach / guide students to practice ensures that the conditions of the practice place are really ready. In this case, the place of practice is the computer lab.

So make sure the computer lab is really "ready", the indicator is that there are no troublesome devices. The layout of the device does not harm students, so make sure things that can harm students are minimized. For example, don't let the CPU casing open, because this can provoke students to crack the device inside which must be connected to a power source, this is dangerous of course.

Make sure that all operating systems and applications are operable. Especially applications that will be used in practicum.

To make sure the practice area is ready, the teacher just has to ask the head of the computer lab (if any). If the school does not have the head of the lab's main duties and responsibilities, then the teacher concerned must check the readiness of the practice site.

Immediately fix if there is trouble on the devices needed before students enter the lab room. The SOP students can enter after the computer lab has been declared no problem by the head of the lab, or after going through a check by the teacher concerned.

4/ Conditioning students to be ready to learn computers

The first step that must be done by the teacher when starting the class is to condition the students. Teachers must really be able to make students in a position ready to learn, the indicators are students are not joking, students sit in the right place for example on what number of computers, students do not do other activities that can interfere with friends and learning activities.

The point is that students must be really conducive first.

To condition students there are many tricks, experienced teachers must already have the formulation. Now for teachers who haven't been teaching for a long time, and there are still many difficulties in terms of conditioning students, some of the tips below can be tried:

Because children are taught how to condition it in a way that can be understood by children, and of course it must be fun. For example, by using the powerful tactic of “silent clap”, examples of silent clapping can be searched on YouTube.
If after being given a ready signal with silent clapping above the student is still not conducive, give a warning, but not with high verbal, enough with non-verbal cues, namely sticking the index finger on the lips.
Attending students is also a tip for conditioning students, so absent students. Aside from being tips for conditioning students, taking attendance is also a job that must be done by teachers so that there is student attendance data.
If the three tips above have not made students conducive, then stand up to convey conditional rules, or rules that students already know about the logical consequences they will receive if they take actions that disrupt the order of learning.
But it should also be understood, the character of the child is different. Some are silent and quiet, some are silent but not focused, some are active, and some are super active (hyperactive). So don't think that conditioning students is to make the class quiet because all students are silent.

Don't waste too much time working on conditioning students, just 5 minutes, and after that duration there are still one or two students who can't be conducive, so focus on other students who are ready to start the lesson.

5/ Start practice with SOP instructions

What are SOP instructions?

That is instructions about standard operating procedures that students must know, understand, and obey about the use of practical tools.

For example, SOPs for turning computers on and off, and SOPs relating to student safety when using learning devices.

This SOP instruction is necessary and must always be delivered at the beginning before the practice begins, in order to minimize bad things caused by students' ignorance of the use of devices in the computer lab.

6/ Provide practical instructions and the benefits of practical materials

Practical instruction is the initial information that the teacher tells students about the material to be practiced.

For example, information opens so many pages, so many exercises on computer modules, each of which is used by students as learning material during practice.

Telling the benefits of practical material is information that must be conveyed by the teacher, about any benefits after students learn the material to be practiced.

For example, the benefits if students are able to type on a computer, when the material to be practiced is learning to type using a word processing application.

7/ Give examples of practical work steps

At this stage the teacher explains, explains, and practices teaching materials through examples of work steps that students must follow.

So that all students can see examples of practical material work steps practiced by the teacher, a projector is needed to visually display what the teacher is doing.

In addition to projectors, another way to display the visualization of practical work steps is by making use of networking / network computers, where students just open a port that contains instructions and examples of work steps.

This stage can be skipped if students use the computer module, because instructions and examples of work steps are already in the module.

8/ Checking / controlling student practice

At this stage the teacher goes around from one student's computer to another student's computer, seeing what students are practicing, seeing whether what the students are doing is according to the instructions or not.

At the time of looking around, the teacher can also give a re-explanation of the instructions that have not been understood by the students.

Usually students will also be interactive, they will ask the teacher for help if they find work steps that they do not understand.

In addition to conventional methods, monitoring student practice can also be done using systems engineering, for example by using netop school software.

9/ Create peer tutors to complete today's material

The ability to understand material among students varies, some are fast, some are slow, or some are even very slow. While the material must be completed in order to move on to the next material. So the teacher must have a method that can be a formula in dealing with the diversity of ways of understanding the student's material.

One of the most effective methods is the peer tutor method.

That is to make students who have the ability to understand faster to guide their friends who do not understand. But before that, the teacher must remind students not to teach but to share and help, this is important to minimize the assumption that the teacher is employed, or the assumption that the teacher does not want to teach and so on.

But usually students who are asked to help their friends who don't understand will be happy to do it, and students who are helped will also understand quickly because they don't feel shy and so on which makes them more relaxed in understanding the material shared by their friends.

10/ End practical activities on time

The spirit of learning is okay, but you must also be disciplined in time.

That is, if students are well conditioned, the material provided can also be understood by students, usually students will be happy to linger in the computer lab.

This is natural, but it is also necessary to remind students that there are other lessons that they must learn, so when the computer study time is up, they should immediately leave the practice area.

Besides teaching time discipline, it also teaches time efficiency, meaning that no time is wasted because of doing work that has actually been done.

It's time to evaluate children's computer learning outcomes
Evaluation is the last job of a series of stages in teaching activities, this work must be done to measure student learning achievement.

11/ Assessing the results of practice

Assessing is one way of evaluating learning.

The type of assessment carried out at this stage, namely the type of formative assessment, is the type of assessment carried out by the teacher during the learning process to see the level of success of the teaching-learning process with an orientation to the KBM process to improve teaching programs and implementation strategies.

At this stage the teacher sees the results of each student's practice. The process can be by looking at the final results of the exercise, or directly when students practice (demonstration assessment).

Or it could also be by verbal communication asking important points that are considered to represent the competency standards of the material being taught.

As for other technical assessments, it can be in written form, namely by making questions that must be answered by students and collected at the end of the practice. For this assessment technique, the items must be theoretical.

For example, what does the word processing application Microsoft Word do?

For example, write down the steps to enter the word processing program Microsoft Word!

Thus the 10 stages of how to teach computers to children, hopefully they can be understood and can be used as a reference for knowledge for novice teachers who are just starting the opportunity to teach computer subjects in basic education units.