I thought the technology standards went along well with Michigan's technology plan. Overall, I like that we have a set of standards as a guide to where we should be striving to have our students by the time they graduate. I am once again struck that I have never seen these standards before this class. It seems like this is something that all teachers should be aware of and able to utilize.
There are some specific things that will be useful in my class though I would like to know how much of these are supposed to be covered in the core classes and how much is supposed to be covered in specific technology classes. I know that at my school we have five teachers in the high school with one dedicated to computers and technology. I am excited though to be integrating some of the technology into my own classroom so that it’s not just in our tech. classes where the kids are being exposed to it, and these standards are a great guide for me to begin doing that. I just taught my technology lesson. When setting up the lesson I used these standards to help figure out what I was going to do and I can already tell it is incredibly helpful to have these on standby. As it stands, I am still just a beginner at integrating technology into my everyday lessons and I think being able to hold ourselves to these specific standards will be helpful.
I agree with you that it is very hard to determine whether a technology is learned in a core subject class or in a technology class. Where I teach, it is widely viewed by school administration that technology standards are the responsibility of core subject teachers but this is not the case in practice. I think that in a school, if there is a skill that should be developed, it should be decided where and when it should be covered. Currently, there is no efficient method that is being attempted to clarify this. Departments (like our english department) do meet regularly and decide which texts will be used to avoid having a student having to repeat a novel in two separate grades. Maybe technology skills should be delegated this way. Honestly, I don't know.
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