California State Framework Standards

California State Framework Standards

The nature of education is changing continuously due to changes in the state of human knowledge and developments in the art or science of teaching humans. These changes are also reflected in the methods of teaching that have to be carried out by concerned teachers. There are many changes that come in to the system due to these changes, but we are concerned with only two aspects and the first of these is the technology skills required by the teachers to be effective in such a condition, and the second is the influence of California State Framework or technology standards on online curriculum and distance learning.

Taking the second point first as it defines the area that we will have to work with, we have to first appreciate that educational computing and technology is a subject which is just coming up and in turn also covers many other subjects. Some of the important fields of knowledge that it covers are (1) integration of technology and curriculum in order to support learning; (2) delivery, progress, prescription and evaluation of the instruction that is given; (3) the quality of teaching computers as an aid for solving of problems; (4) in case the instructions are given in a class, the ability of the teachers in school and classroom management; (5) onward progress by the teachers through research in education; (6) the ability of the teachers and the students in electronic information access and exchange; (7) the levels of personal and professional productivity that are achieved; (8) the development of technical assistance and leadership; and (9) education of the students in the field of computer sciences. (Educational Computing and Technology Standards)

The importance of all these aspects is recognized by the International Society for Technology in Education and thus there is an insistence on educational computing and technology basics being taught to all teachers. The Society also has made it clear that there is an area of educational computing and technological specialty beyond these areas and has thus outlined standards for programs which are for teachers beyond the initial levels and may be called the advanced programs. These programs are also of help to the capacity of teachers for education as also to other organizations which would like to understand and assess the educational programs which are required for further development in the area of teaching the subject. To help develop a uniform standard for the teachers, the Society has now gone into the area of performance assessment standards for all levels of the educational computing, including both initial and advanced stages. These include (1) the starting endorsement of technology facilitation; (2) technology development advanced leadership programs; and (3) the secondary science computer science education programs. For any organization to offer these programs, they must match up to the standards that have been set up by this society. (Educational Computing and Technology Standards)

Now let us see how the technical progress is being used for the purpose of teaching. In one exercise the aim of the entire exercise was considered to determine as to what characters are likely in a book and how the author and the illustrator of the book tend to portray them. For the purpose of conducting this exercise in today's computer oriented world, students have to prepare character webs on Inspiration software and have to make use of suitable words in order to describe about the characters. It has been informed by the person concerned who has prepared the document that the student's concerned need to be made into various groups of four members each and they ought to perform a brainstorm with regard to the character that they choose for the purpose of analyzing. This gives rise to different groups to have their freedom in order to choose different types of characters and thus not be able to get into direct conflict between each other. The job for the teacher is also considered to be easier as he/she does not have to be engaged in doing any comparative assessment regarding him/her and he can actually leave that task to Inspiration and even try to show the results on a class monitor to the entire class. The teacher can also try to get the students in order to share their assessments in relation to the qualities and attributes. When the entire group of the characters involved has been modeled by the different sections of groups which exist in the class, then the students are usually being grouped in pairs and each pair then goes to the computer in order to build up their own type of webs for each of the characters. By the time the class is set to be over, each pair is then expected to bring about one Inspiration web for the case of presentation to the entire class, which is usually then presented in front of the entire class. These can then be set to be saved in their own folders for further usage in the studies pertaining to the book. (Educational Technology Unit) The question still remains as to whether this gives the computer and software dominance on the education of the students that it does not deserve.

This level of categorization of knowledge now exists for all subjects and in the new California State standards, there are three overall model content standards. The first of these is to show relevant knowledge and competency in motor skills, movement patterns and strategies needed to perform a range of physical activities. In the second set, there has to be a level of physical fitness for health and performance while demonstrating knowledge of fitness concepts, principles and strategies. The third level is to demonstrate knowledge of psychological and sociological concepts, principles and strategies as they apply to learning and performance of physical activity. (New California State Standards) It is clear that these are applicable for motor skills and movement knowledge. This again shows that probably the clear specification of the requirements of knowledge removes the freedom that a teacher should have to be able to teach at their best. This was also seen in the last case for education of literature.