Technology Literacy

This is going to be my second year teaching. I worked in software for a decade before becoming a teacher so I'm technology literate and have therefore drawn the short straw to teach a section of Technology Literacy. The class is half a year long and it is the only technology course that is required for the entire district. There is no real guidance as to what I am supposed to cover. My students will have very different technology backgrounds so utilizing projects makes a lot of sense.

I do have some of my own ideas for the course: a project where students create a family tree using a wiki, a video classroom sharing with a school in Jamaica using Skype, Facebook/technology safety, etc. I start the school year on September 10th, I just got married this summer and I'm having a baby in December so I'm trying to keep it simple. I'd love to primarily base the Tech Lit course on someone else's curriculum/syllabus. Please let me know if you have a suggestion for where I can find a syllabus or a textbook or who I should ask for one.

Tags: facebook, internet, literacy, microsoft, projects, safety, skype, teaching, technology, word

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Permalink Reply by suehellman on August 30, 2009 at 9:53am

Someone asked a question very much like yours in Classroom 2.0 a while ago. This is the link with some ideas: http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/649749:Topic:167505

Vicki Davis (Cool Cat Teacher blog ) might have a good outline. It will help her if you specify what level this course is aimed at. The other place to look might be ISTE or http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS

Also have you look at:
a) http://www2.edc.org/ewit/resource.asp?view=all
b) http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/
c) http://www.doemass.org/edtech/standards/itstand.pdf

Other places to look:
a)http://www.ictliteracy.info/K12-Resources.htm
b)http://www.thinkfinity.org/home.aspx
c)http://www.aea1.k12.ia.us/technology/techliteracy.html
d)http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/curriculum/computerskills/scos/
e)http://www.barren.k12.ky.us/userfiles/1231/file
/Barren%20County%20...
f)http://cpsed.net/chsefac/ruscito/ComputerLiteracysyllabus.pdf
g)http://ils.unc.edu/courses/2009_summerI/inls461_001/info_sheets/syl...

I hope something here is of help.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Henry on August 30, 2009 at 10:06am

Wow, thanks! I really appreciate all the links, this is very helpful information.

The course is the only technology course that the district (and that my school) requires for all students before graduation. Students can take the course any year, so I will have 9-12 in the class, though primarily 10. I expect the background of the students will also be very broad.

I have looked at the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks in detail. They are definitely helpful, but I am looking to find a syllabus based on those (or similar) frameworks done by someone who is a good and experienced technology instructor. I figure that if I can avoid reinventing the wheel my students will really benefit.

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Permalink Reply by Christina Osieja on August 30, 2009 at 12:51pm

Hi Eric-take a look at what Google has to offer. Here is a link that might help you.
http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html
Have a wonderful year.
Chris

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Permalink Reply by Mark McBride on February 11, 2010 at 11:08am

Hi Eric,

I know I'm a little late, but this is something that I do with college age students. What I'm surprised with is that many of them have no idea how to install software.

What I have done is have the students purchase a flash drive with at least 1gb of space. Then then install Firefox Portable With this they are allowed to install an Internet browser that they can customize themselves using Firefox add ons. I also introduce them to open source software and teach them to install software packages onto their flash drive. On campus it works great, because the students can go to any computer, plug in their flash drive, open up portable Firefox and pick up where they left off when they were previous;y on the Internet.

Some of the concerns we had on campus were that students could access any site using portable Firefox so you may want to run something like this past your IT department. The benefits, is that students learn to actually install software. Many times educators in Higher Ed. are under the impression that our students are very well versed in all things digital. What we discovered is that most of our upper division undergrads are not as computer literate as we had hoped. They do not have the basics.

I hope your class went well.

Mark