For the second week of February, we continued our work on the Build Skills in Communications section of the Program and started working on the Computer Skills Badge.
As the girls arrived, they were given a Morse Code Puzzle to Solve and were challenged to write their name in Morse Code.We then began with our usual opening ceremony, followed by an active game chosen and led the evening's Active Living Patrol.
Our first activity was a discussion about computers in daily life. The girls were asked for examples of how they had used a computer that day, and then asked to consider other technologies that rely on computers to work.
Each Patrol was then challenged to come up with an A to Z list of businesses or places that use computers. Points were scored by the Patrol with the most local suggestion for each letter!
We then moved onto a Relay to match parts of a computer and related technology with their descriptions. It was eye-opening how few of these the girls were able to get right the first time. It was definitely a learning activity for all. The parts were labelled with a letter and the descriptions labelled with a number. (This activity comes from Go For It! Communicate from Girlguiding UK)
| A. Chip | 2. Contains millions of electronic components, but you can't put ketchup on it! |
| B. Computer | 7. A machine that responds to a set of specific questions. |
| C. Keyboard | 12. Use this to enter data into a computer. |
| D. Mouse | 1. Controls the movement of the cursor or pointer on the screen. |
| E. Scanner | 13. A device that reads text or pictures from paper and feeds the information into your computer. |
| F. Printer | 8. Provides you with a hard copy of your documents. |
| G. Monitor | 4. Can also be called a display screen. |
| H. Disk Drive | 11. Reads data from, and writes to, a disk. |
| I. Modem | 14. Transmits data over a telephone line or through cable lines. |
| J. CPU (Central Processing Unit) | 5. The most important part of the computer, almost like its brain. |
| K. Internet | 9. A network connecting millions of computers. |
| L. Digital Camera | 15. Stores digital images that can then be downloaded onto a computer. |
| M. CD-ROM | 6. You can store large amounts of data on these, including graphics, sounds and video. |
| N. Clip Art | 10. Electronic pictures that can be placed into documents. |
| O. Corrupted | 3. What happens when data becomes damaged. |
Next, we talked briefly about how Morse Code was used for telegrams, which were the text messages of their day. Both relay information quickly, but use a limited number of characters. Each girl had to write a text message of no more than 160 characters describing her favourite computer game, program or website and why others should visit it.
The grandmother of one of our Guides was helping out at this meeting and she brought in ship's signalling flags to show the girls how they would be used to communicate between ships.
Parents have been emailed with the take-home activities for the Computer Skills Badge - to email or bring in two examples of work the girls have created using a computer (school work is fine!!).
The last activity was to work on creating illustrations for the pieces of writing they have brought in for our newsletter/booklet. Time went by too quickly, and we just had time to close with taps before pick-up.
