Technology literacy: It's time to measure it

But how?

Start early, like with any literacy skills

Not necessarily in a Computer Lit class. Integrating technology reinforces tech skills as well as learning

Use gaming and virtual worlds (MUVE + multiuser virtual environments) ??? See River City

See http://www.powerupthegame.org/ by IBM

Use a multiple assessments and approaches starting in the eighth grade. Celebrate student learning milestones. In sum, the student needs to know their learning level and learning progress.

Or use "an actual test to determine whether students are proficient with technology or use embedded assessments to gauge students’ skills by looking at how they use technology in the context of the curriculum."

Brenda Williams, executive director of the West Virginia Department of Education’s office of technology, said she believes students first must acquire knowledge, then they must deepen that knowledge, and finally they must create new knowledge from what they have learned.

“In West Virginia, the foundation for good assessment is first providing comprehensive professional development to teachers and administrators,” said Williams.Classroom content must be engaging and include opportunities for real-life problem solving, she said, but it also must provide active data that can be used to measure students’ understanding. And educators must be taught how to interpret these data.

Teach teachers to be proficient with using technology and teaching with technology. Also, assess their learning and teaching in mulptiple ways.



In any event, it needs to be done!

Tooling with Moodle: My second experience

My thoughths and insights at this moment:

The content is there to be accessed. Like I expected, students missed classes for myriad reasons and Moodle was there for students to pick up where they left off.

Moodle is not a replacement for the teacher. Attitudes and motivations of the students must be present.

Managing the learning content is more than just putting it there. I have learned that getting students to pariticpate in forums, posting ideas, empowering themselves to take control of the learning unit, etc. is what will make this Moodle thing work. Read http://moodlea.blogspot.com/2008/03/does-vle-need-content.html


I have realized that offering all the learning content (in a list) provides distraction.; that is, they navigates aimlessly through the lessons proffered. I tried to shy away from making a chornological to-do list in order to empower students to do what they feel doing on a particular day - i.e. watch a video, use an interactive study guide, read, etc. During class time I will present only the content for the period.



Read moodle report: www.k12opentech.org/implementation-study-3-moodle

NCLB and Technology: How it influences us

The NCLB report summary from ACTEM helped me decipher what influences our schools.

Highlights:

NCLB demands that schools fully integrate technology into the curriculum in all schools to enhance teaching and learning

Technical Literacy: "One of the goals of Title IID NCLB is to have all 8th graders deemed "Technically Literate" by the time they leave grade eight." In our case, all students before their senior year should be technically literate. How to do this?

Computer Ratio: Our number of computers to students is high and our number of Internet accessible computers to students ratio is very high.

Trained Staff: "The number of teachers trained in the Inquiry Based Method used by the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) or one-one latops". Since we are unsure of teachers trained in general computer use, learning the IBM method is impractical.

Conclusion and plan:

It is necessary to implement a plan to get our students literate by grade 11(grade 8 would be better). This could be done by integrating technology in all courses or having technology literacy courses. or tech courses in the earlier grades, integrating regualrly in upper grades to enforce the "literate" base established in the earlier grades.

It is necessary to assess teachers' computer competency and offer training off and online. Also, it is necessary to teach teachers how to teach with computers using the Inquiry Based Method.

It is necessary to maintain a high computer to student ratio and continue to add more technologies like Smartboards, Web 2.0 applications, assitive technologies, etc...