Dear Student or Parent,

Keyboarding is a nine week class taken by all 6th graders at Oak Harbor Middle School. The goal of the class is for each student to be able to touch type all the leters of the keyboard at 20 words per minute or better. In order to do this we use the computer program Microtype Pro available from Southwestern Educationl Publishing (http://www.swep.com/).The basic part of this program consists of 19 lessons. Each student's grade will be determined by how many of those lessons they successfully complete. Each child will be issued a Micrtype Pro Keyboarding Progress Sheet which they will keep at all times in their binder. The teacher will initial the Progress Sheet as the lessons are passed. At the end of the sheet there is a key that indicates the student's grade based on how many lessons have been passed at the end of the nine weeks.

In addition to keyboarding, one day a week, usually Wednesdays, the class does an alternate activity using the program HyperStudio. Hyperstudio is a multimedia program that permits the user to create interactive projects that utilize graphics, animation, and sound. Hyperstudio can be purchased at http://www.hyperstudio.com you may also download a free player there that will play Hyperstudio stacks (but not create them).