Curriculum, Technology Standards and Curriculum

Curriculum, Technology Standards and Curriculum Standards-based education is based upon the principles and belief that children can and should be presented with a challenging curriculum in order to improve their performance at school and ultimately also in their professional lives. Most educators appear to agree on the fact that children need challenges in order to grow. Indeed, it is a general human need as well; to be challenged and to meet these challenges for self- or professional improvement. I therefore believe that the principle of standards-based education itself is sound.

Students need challenges. If they are not presented with challenges, they fail to grow in their academic and also in their human capacity. Being presented with and meeting challenges is a vital skill that students will be able to use not only in their future academic and professional lives, but in their personal lives as well. The main disadvantage that can be connected with this type of education is however the way in which it is implemented.

I believe that the greatest disadvantage is presented when state standards are imposed in a top-down manner by federal or state government. The officials that impose these standards do not work with students or in the educational realm itself. They therefore do not know what the challenges are that students face or the problems that teachers are presented with when working with a diverse student body.

The state and federal government is instead focused upon creating a standard that "looks good," rather than one that can function optimally within the practical school environment. I therefore believe that standards-based education is definitely essential if students are going to develop optimally on both a personal and academic level. In order for this development to indeed be optimal, however, the final implementation of specific standards should be left to those working directly with students, including teachers, parents, and school counselors.

Task 2: Technology Technology today is such a vital and important part of human life, both in the home and at work, that it is hardly conceivable that it should not be implemented at educational institutions as well. Interestingly, however, many such institutions site lack of funding as an excuse for not implementing new technology at their premises. In my view, this trend should be curbed as soon as possible, as education is the springboard for future professional excellence.

Children at schools today will more likely than not enter workplaces where technology is at the heart of operations. Hence, the sooner they learn how to work with computer and other technological devices, the better they will be prepared for their future careers. The school system is by definition a field of preparation for young children to be able to effectively enter a workplace. Therefore technology should form the basis of any educational process.

This was the first challenge I faced when attempting to implement technology at my school: I had to convince my superiors that obtaining the significant funding needed for such a venture was vital in order to ensure an optimal future for the children at the school.

My supervisors had to be convinced not only of the future benefits that such technology would have for children, because they could simply raise the counter-argument that most children had computers at home, and that the school had a perfectly good computer system at the library. My view was that each classroom should implement computer technology in the teacher process. Therefore my superiors also had to be convinced of the current benefits of implementing a computer system that students could use almost constantly.

Once I was able to effect this, each classroom was furnished with 4-6 computers, depending upon the average number of students that entered the class per week. Students were then able to work on the computers in a group capacity, where each group member had an opportunity to work with the technology with the help of the rest of the group. Once this was done, my second challenge was to help my diverse students to become used to the technology and be able to use it effectively.

This was particularly challenging, as some students have been working regularly with the library computers, while others have used them as little as possible. Contributing to the already existing diversity in my classroom was also the fact that some students had personal computers at home, while others did not. Some of my students were simply not as interested in the technology as others. I handled this by dividing students into groups where as many of the diverse issues as possible were presented.

One group for example would have at least one student who was very well-versed at computer technology, one student who had worked very little with computers, with other members who are in a diversity of academic and technological range. The idea was to help students help themselves and each other. When I taught a skill -- searching the Internet for information, for example.