 | | Students work on all kinds of projects in the computer lab, including drawing, writing and research.. |
Sheridan Elementary’s computer lab is a community resource for the entire East Side. We have 30 Dell computers running Windows 2000 Professional in our lab, the vast majority less than two years old. This guarantees that each student in the lab has their own modern, working machine to learn on.
We use our lab to teach a range of computer skills, from identifying parts of the computer, such as disk drives, keyboards, etc, and how to use a mouse, to more advanced topics such as typing and even research skills. Students in grades four through six use the Internet as a tool to help create time lines and other projects. Instruction in the computer lab augments projects classes are working on outside the computer lab. For example, students learning about the American Revolution in Social Studies  | | Computers are fun and educational tools at Sheridan Elementary. |
may browse selected sites about Boston Tea Party in the lab in order to write a report, or research the types of clothing worn by the colonialists for a poster presentation. As with all other St. Paul Public Schools, our web service is filtered to make sure inappropriate websites cannot be viewed at Sheridan.
In order to save money, Sheridan Elementary has installed OpenOffice, a software product free for educational institutions that works with Microsoft Office files, on every computer in the lab. Students use OpenOffice to write reports, design presentations and make spreadsheets.
Periodically, Sheridan opens its computer lab up at night, allowing community members to use the resource. Sheridan also makes the computer lab available to families on conference days and evenings.
| 
