Technology that Works

This week's readings have me thinking a lot about what I teach and why. On the one hand, being the computer teacher is perfect; my lessons are all hands-on, so my curriculum naturally provides alternative assessments and caters to all types of students. In other words, I don't have to go out of my way to try to teach to various learning styles. In addition, the kids love coming to computers and are always eager to find out what the next lesson has in store for them. In many ways, I've got it made. The purpose and goals of my curriculum, however, are quickly changing as our readings are pointing out. It's no longer good enough just to install a bunch of software and let the kids go to town. Clearly, I need to have more direction and consider carefully why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm not trying to imply that I just have the students play all day long; much of what I already do meets many of the standards. The problem is is that I've never really sat down and intentionally designed my curriculum around the standards. I've always referred to the standards and made sure mine were aligned, but with the new NETS standards, I need to really weigh my lessons and figure out how to teach more effectively. In addition, although I typically use a rubric for most lessons, I don't for all, and my feedback typically is a letter grade and a comment or two or a verbal comment in large group. I also rarely have students participate in what they want to learn. Instead, I tell THEM what we're going to do and don't necessarily make my goals and objectives real clear to them.

I think the most difficult challenge I feel has more to do with how to meet the objectives of my young students. All of this seems easier with the older students. Even much of our textbook is directed toward older students. I have 7 and 8 year olds up to 12 year olds. Designing my objectives for the older students doesn't seem quite as daunting; their written and verbal skills are obviously better developed. The younger ones, however, are barely reading. Figuring out how they can set their own objectives, for example, seems rather difficult. Perhaps I feel somewhat intimidated because my degree was for grades 7-12. I'm sure it would have helped to actually have had elementary ed classes. It has taken me these four years just to realize how literal little kids are. Thank goodness I have raised three of my own. That, alone, has provided more knowledge than any class I could have taken. So I can now see that one of my goals for this class is going to be figuring out how to make technology instruction work for me for the younger ages. I want to do more than just teach them the keyboard and how to boot up the computer.