Tools Part 2

When I traveled to Vegas for the first time many years ago, one of the most awesome sites for me wasn't the casinos, with their dinging machines and colorful lights, nor was it the mini-Eiffel Tower or New York rollercoaster. Nope, for me one of the truly grand sites was the M&M candy store. Walking into the M&M store, my eyes could not take enough in of the ginormous containers filled to the brim with exquisite colorful candies. I had never seen such a place that was so richly colorful and so tantalizing at the same time. I walked around that store for nearly a half hour, trying to decide where to even begin. Alas, in the end, I left the store with nothing, finding the decision of what to buy too overwhelming.

All the studying we've been doing on Internet tools has me feeling much like that first time in the M&M store. I can't get enough of all the variety of learning resources there are on the Web, but I'm finding the task of picking and choosing which to use a bit overwhelming. I've bookmarked just about every one of them, but now I'm a bit befuddled as to how to best use them in my classroom. I'm beginning to feel like I need to dump my current curriculum and move in an entirely different direction.

Part of my anxiousness also has to do with the fact that my school is trying to move toward a standard's-based report card this fall. I have already completed a list of objectives, based upon our Diocesan standards, but now I'm realizing that these standards are completely archaic and must have been created while the concept of cloud computing was in its infancy and the Internet was a place you visited for specific tasks. The current objectives focus on the student's ability to "do" things, such as cut and paste, create a document, boot and shut down the computer, etc. These are very easy tasks to complete and measure but clearly they don't begin to tap into the deeper levels and potential of the tools we've learned about in class.

In addition, I've started to take a closer look at the NETS and am realizing that they, too, have very little to do with what my are or the Diocesan standards are. I'm quickly realizing that my responsibility to my students is not so much teaching them how to cut, paste and insert images, but, more importantly, how to collaborate, problem-solve and be responsible, digital- and media-literate citizens. Yikes!!! Teaching them to cut and paste sounds soooo much easier.

So this is where my mind-set is, and I'm excited, yet struggling, with how to best approach the up-coming year. The Diocese hopes to create a standards team to help revise them, and I've asked to put on the list. But clearly revising the standards to coincide with NETS is a daunting task, and I'm sure there will be much debate. Should the standards be broken down by grade level? How specific do we want to be? How can the standards be created in such a way that schools with less access can still meet the criteria? Should we even take this into consideration or simply demand that schools meet the criteria for the sake of the students? And on a smaller scale, how can I convince my teachers to include the types of tools we've covered in class? As the tech teacher is it my sole responsibility to educate my students or should all the teachers be required to do so?

GRRRRRR... This has my head swimming, and I'm afraid that I may become too overwhelmed, thus leaving the candy store empty-handed.