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1. All students are expected to behave in the computer lab. If they misbehave, consequences may be taken which range from loss of computer time to loss of computer privileges, depending on the severity of the broken rule.

2. All rules for the computer lab are posted on the bulletin board. Treat all computer parts with respect. This means NO Pounding on the Keyboard, no matter how frustrated one gets. At this point, a student may be asked to get a drink of water.

3. All students from grades 3-8 and EMH must sign an AUP (agreement user policy) for the use of the Internet. Both student and parent must sign this sheet in order to have Internet privileges. These sheets are available at registration in August and at the Office during the school year.

1. All students need a pair of working headphones, preferably new ones. These headphones will be placed in a plastic bag and only the owner of the headphones will be using them. It is up to the students and parents to replace any broken headphones during the school year. You will be notified by email, letter, or phone call when your child needs headphones. Please be prompt and return new ones as soon as possible.

2. A memory stick or jump drive is recommended for any student grades 3-8. (They go by other names, too.) These can be purchased at Walmart. I saw one that was 1 GB for around $20 and another one that was 2GB for $30. These can be easily brought back and forth to home especially for the 7th and 8th graders during Science Fair time. However, your student will be responsible for this storage item. If your child wants to keep it in the Computer Lab, she/he needs to label it with their name. It will then be put in their grade disk container. If your students carries it around with them, she/he has that responsibility for it. It might be a good idea for your student to save everything that is on that memory stick to their home computer and to their My Documents at school. (The brand new computers do not even have a floppy disk drive. All floppies were handed back to the students at the end of this school year.)

Community Computer Class to be held in January, 2010
An adult computer class will be held at Tonica Grade School in the Computer Lab which will begin on Monday, January 25, 2009, and held every Monday night after that for a total of six weeks. The class will run from 6:00-7:30 PM. at a cost of $35. The topics covered will be Windows XP desktop, the Internet, MS Word 2007, MS Excel 2007, and MS PowerPoint 2007. Other topics may be explored depending on the interests of the class members. This class will not be held without reaching a minimum number of students. To participate in the class and hold your place, send your name, address, phone number, and a check for $35 made out to Tonica Grade School to:

Tonica Grade School
535 1981st Rd,
Tonica, IL 61370

If you have any questions, call me at Tonica Grade School (815) 442-3420. Get ready to have fun and learn at the same time!!! See you then!

NEW for 2009-2010: We are in the process of setting up 23 brand new computers in the Computer Lab. They are HP desktops with a 19" LCD screen. They are sweeeeeet!! I'm sure that the students will enjoy them. We are doing great with our Windows 2003 server which was new last year. So things are moving along very smoothly in the Technology department! Those 23 Dells will be put into other classrooms. Many of them are only two years old. The classrooms will now have faster machines and LCD screens! Yipeeee!! (It really does make a difference!)

In February of this year, Tonica Grade School became the proud owner of 28 Laptop Computers and a cart that holds and charges all of them at one time. Each teacher signs up for the lab at the office for a specific time. At the end of the day, the cart is wheeled into the back room of the Media Center and plugged in to get ready for the next day's use. The laptops have been used for:

    **working on the Lexia Reading program (Kdgn on up)
    **creating a PowerPoint presentation on a state and on a country (4th)
    **creating a Movie on a topic for Exploratory class (7th and 8th)
    **checking out certain websites on the Internet (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th)
    **creating a Roman project using facts from the Internet and typing a report in Word 07 (6th)
    **many other misc. projects that were done.

We are all very excited about the additional computers and that they can be plugged in anywhere. This gives the school so much more flexibility for using computers and integrating them into our curriculum.