Sunday Indepth – Technology Standards
Peg Henson, Curriculum Technology Specialist, South Dakota Department of Education (http://doe.sd.gov/contentstandards/nclb/index.asp)
NCLB – Title II D
1. Improve student academic achievement through the use of technology in elementary schools and secondary schools.
2. To assist every student in corssing the digital divide by ensuring that every student is technologically literate by the time the student finished 8th grade, regardless of the student’s race, ethnicity, gender, family income, geographic location, or disability.
3. To encourage the effective integration of technology resources and systems with teacher training and curriculum development to establish research-based instructional methods that can be widely implemented as best practices by State educational agencies and local educational agencies.
South Dakota identified 5 core Strands
1. Nature, Concepts, and Systems
2. Social Interactions in Information & Communication Technology
3. Information & Communication Technology Tools
4. Information & Communication Technology Processes
5. Information Literacy
Next, they identified specific indicators for each strand and used Bloom’s Taxonomy to list supporting skills and lesson examples for each grade level. Strands can be found at http://doe.sd.gov/contentstandards/NCLB/standardcreation.asp
South Dakota has also signed on to participate in a new national program with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/
Federal goverment requires the states report out on the percentage of 8th graders who score proficient based on the number of students tested state-wide. They do not require individual district results…only state-wide results.
South Dakota is using an online assessment. 07-08 was a pilot year with 11 districts. Students took a pretest in the fall and will take a post-test in the spring. All schools will be required to implement the standards (K-12) and post-testing (8th) during the 08-09 school year. ALL teachers will be required to implement these standards, NOT just technology teachers.
Technology is great, but it HAS to come into the content areas. They have to mix for students understand the context for what they are learning. http://sdedtechstandards.blogspot.com/2007/05/hello-and-welcome-to-technology.html
A blog has been created for teachers to post their questions (anonymously) and receive answers from the Dept. of Ed. and the curriculum committee.
SD DOE also has a wiki set up for easy access to each grade level’s standards for each strand. http://technology-standards.wikispaces.com/
The Assessment -
Learning.com has created a reliable, validity tested-criterion based assessment based on the NETS standards. It is used in many states.
Sample test activity
http://www.learning.com/tla/20itemsample/fall06/
http://www.learning.com/tla/20itemsample/fall06/middle/
South Dakota is having this assessment realigned to their standards. The main difference between SD and ISTE is that SD took the time to break out skills for ALL grade levels where ISTE has grouped grade levels together.
EasyTech
http://www.learning.com/easytech/curriculum.htm
Each EasyTech curriculum unit includes lessons, activities, practices, discussions and quizzes. EasyTech Lessons are interactive, self-paced tutorials that teach students critical technology skills in the context of core curriculum and real world challenges. Activities are core curriculum lesson plans, complete with lesson details, student worksheets, models of completed projects and a flexible rubric tool.
There is a free 30-day trial download. The purchase price is about $12 per student. (Time to find some grant money!!!!)
