cleverhandle
Diamond Member
I'm a high school math teacher by trade, though I spend a lot of time with computers. My school (large, urban public school) was given a "Technology Academy Program" by the board of ed a year or so back, but they've never really given us any direction on what to do with it, and the current teacher they have is not so hot. So the administration has offered me the opportunity (? 😉) to take control of it. At this point, I don't really know what our resources are or how much freedom I have. I'll be sitting down with the principal soon to figure that out, but before then, I need your input, especially from those actually working in IT right now...
What does a great high school technology class look like? What kind of activites do the students participate in? What hardware and software do they use? How is the curriculum structured? What kind of role does the teacher play in the class? What skills do students enter the class with, and what do they learn by the time they leave?
Most of the classes I've seen, both at my school and others, would have driven me away from computers had I taken them. I see students being asked to read textbook chapters about the subtle differences between input devices. I see lots and lots of acronyms to memorize, though students never actually work with TCP or LDAP or any of the others. I see tremendous amounts of time spent on obscure features of MS Office, which they will probably never use, even if MS doesn't change them in the next revision. I hear students who entered the class full of enthusiasm tell me it's the worst class of the day.
I know that if I get involved with this, it will be a huge time sink. So I want to make sure I've got the resources to do this right. Tell me what I'm going to need.
What does a great high school technology class look like? What kind of activites do the students participate in? What hardware and software do they use? How is the curriculum structured? What kind of role does the teacher play in the class? What skills do students enter the class with, and what do they learn by the time they leave?
Most of the classes I've seen, both at my school and others, would have driven me away from computers had I taken them. I see students being asked to read textbook chapters about the subtle differences between input devices. I see lots and lots of acronyms to memorize, though students never actually work with TCP or LDAP or any of the others. I see tremendous amounts of time spent on obscure features of MS Office, which they will probably never use, even if MS doesn't change them in the next revision. I hear students who entered the class full of enthusiasm tell me it's the worst class of the day.
I know that if I get involved with this, it will be a huge time sink. So I want to make sure I've got the resources to do this right. Tell me what I'm going to need.
