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...