If you don't have a school-age child, take a peek at Cisco's VNI Service Adoption blog. There's an uptick in the impact of technology on all parts of consumer life. As Cisco suggests, these changes are all about connecting students to their future, empowering them with responsibility for their own education in areas such as:
- access to learning
- quality of instruction and education assessment
- innovative learning models
- decision making
- reduced costs with administrative efficiency (not yet, but it's a good goal)
As a tech teacher, the new educational paradigm relies on either the United States' No Child Left Behind, the International Baccalaureate Organization's international IB educational guidelines, and/or the National Board of Governors state-driven Common Core Standards (already adopted in 46 states). Interestingly, these education standards may (or may not) address technology, but only tangentially, as they contribute to core subjects. Many states have area-specific technology standards (though all don't, most visibly California). Others leave it to the International Society of Technology Education's well-respected NETS national technology standards.
As the tech teacher, I used to teach keyboarding and software. Now, depending upon my school's focus, it's laptops, iPads, online tools, websites, and problem-solving to increase independence.
Over the next months, I'll give you a peek into how today's classrooms are using this unprecedented access to the world's knowledge base. I'll start with keyboarding.
It's not your mother's typing class. First off, it starts in kindergarten. I bet most of you took typing in high school--middle school if your school district was precocious.
What a wonderful time to be a student.