Belt Loop
Complete these three requirements 
- Explain these parts of a personal computer: central processing unit (CPU), monitor, keyboard, mouse, modem, and printer.
- Demonstrate how to start up and shut down a personal computer properly.
- Use your computer to prepare and print a document.
Academics Pin
Earn the Computers belt loop and complete five of the following requirements.
- Use a computer to prepare a report on a subject of interest to you. Share it with your den.
- Make a list of 10 devices that can be found in the home that use a computer chip to function.
- Use a computer to maintain a balance sheet of your earnings or allowance for four weeks.
- Use a spreadsheet program to organize some information.
- Use an illustration, drawing, or painting program to create a picture.
- Use a computer to prepare a thank you letter to someone..
- With your parent’s or adult partner’s permission, log on to the Internet. Visit the Boy scouts of America web site: http://www.scouting.org.
- Discuss personal safety rules you should pate attention to while using the Internet.
- Practice a new computer game for two weeks. Demonstrate an improvement in your scores.
- With your parent’s or adult partner’s permission, correspond with a friend via email. Have at least five email replies from your friend.
- Visit a local business or government agency that uses a mainframe computer to handle its business. Explain how computers save the company time and money in carrying out its work.
Resources
Computers have become so important in our lives that information on computers is available everywhere. Contact your local library, use the Internet (with your parent’s or adult partner’s permission), visit local computer stores or bookstores, or visit a computer department at a college or university. Online, use a search engine and key words and phrases to find computer topics that interest you.
Additional Information
Parent Guide
- Be involved with your children and their computer use. Talk to them, establish rules, and make it known that violation of the rules can lead to a suspension of their online privileges.
- Don’t use the computer as an “electronic baby-sitter.” Stay aware of and be involved with your child’s online activities. Put the computer in a family room rather than in a child’s bedroom.
- Commercial online services have parental control or “blocking” features that allow parents to keep children out of certain areas. Internet Web browsers are developing controls, and there are also software packages designed to block Internet sites such as Internet newsgroups, specific Web sites, file libraries, and chat areas known to contain sexually explicit material. Some software packages give parents the option of choosing which types of sites to block.
Rules for Online Safety
- I will talk with my parents so that we can set up rules for going online. We will decide on the time of day that I can be online, the length of time I can be online, and appropriate Web sites for me to visit. If I want to visit other Web sites, I will get my parents’ permission first.
- While I’m online, I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents’ work addresses/telephone numbers, or the name and location of my school without my parents’ permission.
- I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.
- I will not respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make me feel uncomfortable. It is not my fault if I get a message like that. If I do, I will tell my parents right away so that they can contact the online service.
- I will never agree to get together with someone I “meet” online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place, and I will bring a parent or my adult guardian along.
- While I’m online, I will never send a person my picture or anything else without first checking with my parents.
Home Devices That Have Computer Chips
Computer chips are everywhere—even in your television, VCR, radio, videocassette recorder, CD player, digital clock, electric razor, answering machine, icemaker, microwave oven, coffee maker, garage door opener, security system, sprinkler system, and many other new appliances.
