Last week (Thursday, April 26), students from Dr. Don Schwartz’s Software Engineering class traveled to St. Richard Catholic School in northeast Jackson to install and test I Can Learn!, which the Millsaps class designed specifically for pre-K students at St. Richard.
Mrs. Shelia Foggo, who teaches computer classes to all grade
levels at St. Richard, said she was especially grateful for the software
because “everything that is [currently] available is not for this
young an age.” Because pre-K students are not yet able to read,
their software has to be audio-based so that they can understand and participate.
Mrs. Foggo worked with Dr. Schwartz and the class to tailor the software
specifically to her students’ needs and specifications. Because
of the success of this project, Millsaps plans to make this software package
available free of charge to all area schools that would like to incorporate
it into their classrooms and labs.
I Can Learn! includes games and activities to help students identify and learn letters, numbers, colors and shapes. As students become more proficient in the activities, I Can Learn! increases in difficulty and allows the teacher to track each student’s progress. For more advanced students, the software also begins to teach and test the spellings of the colors and shapes that students have already learned. There is also a catching game, which improves hand-eye coordination.
The partnership between Mrs. Foggo’s and Dr. Schwartz’s classes is part of the Faith & Work Initiative’s service learning program, which, according to its website, seeks to “help students make connections between their academic development and their character development; put differently, it helps them bridge the gap between academic affairs and student affairs, offering them a holistic model of human development.”
