Chapter 6

“Curriculum is defined as the knowledge skills, and performance standards students are expected to acquire in different grade levels, or through sequences or clusters based on subject matter units of instruction, such as language arts, mathematics, science, English, history, physical education, and others.” Every state and sometimes every different school have their own curriculum, which is defined by teachers and the Educational Department. The State Department of Education provides schools with “curriculum guidelines for the schools to follow, and to keep on track. Technology can help reach the curriculum standards by improving the speed at which kids learn and understand the material. Technology should be made accessible to teachers and students so they can use curriculum based programs to learn the material. A lot of these programs build on what the teacher teaches. The key to technology integration is realizing what you want to accomplish in your curriculum, then you will be able to integrate the proper technology to compliment your lesson.

Last week I realized the benefits of technology and its many uses. However I also recognized the fact that technology can’t replace the “one on one” quality attention you receive from a teacher. Students must learn how to interact in a social setting with other students which can not be done with technology. In class I learned how to make a table on word. I also learned how to formulate a rubric in order to help students evaluate websites. My rubric was designed to help students who were doing research and didn’t know how to tell if something was a scholarly article or just a mediocre response someone posted on-line. I learned how to shade my table to make it easier to read. I also added bullets, underlines, and borders as well. This should be very helpful in the future when I have to formulate “real” rubrics for students to use.

This week I enjoyed the warm air and sunshine. It’s been busy since midterms are this week, but hopefully everything will go well. On Wednesday Blue Man Group is coming so if you don’t already have tickets you should try and get them. My sister saw them perform in New York and she thought they were amazing. I have the sound track, it’s awesome.