Contents  FEATURE: Kathy Schrock's Tech Quest    How can I cover the technology standards in my curriculum? Part 1 by Kathy Schrock
		There is an overwhelming amount of information that must be covered in classrooms today. The technology standards are just one more thing teachers have to deal with! Many educators have asked me how they can use technology to support their already crowded curriculums, and fortunately, the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students are not intended to be taught in isolation. The skills and ideas in the NETS are best taught in conjunction with the content standards already being addressed in class.
		The technology standards categorize skills for students into six areas: Basic operations and concepts Social, ethical, and human issues Technology productivity tools Technology communications tools Technology research tools Technology problem-solving and decision-making tools In this article, I will discuss and demonstrate how to incorporate the first three concepts outlined in the NETS into a current curriculum. The remaining three standards will be covered in the next article. As an example of how to incorporate technology concepts into your daily lessons, let's take a look at how you can teach the technology standards via a typical social studies project for elementary students -- a report about a state. THE ASSIGNMENT: You are a member of your state's tourism bureau. Your goal is to persuade the rest of the class to relocate to your state. Research your state and create a multimedia slide show or series of Web pages containing details about your state that will convince people to move there.		BASIC OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS In order to use the computer to research and create their state presentations, students must be familiar with many basic computer skills. These include booting up the machine; opening programs; using the network; saving information; cutting, copying, and pasting text and graphics; and recording sounds and/or voice with a microphone. Each skill must be formally taught to students, either in the classroom or computer lab. Begin by giving students a technology assessment survey to determine their skill levels. Not only will this help you discover what your students already know, it will also help you locate computer-savvy students who may be able to assist others if you are not available. To refresh students' memories about skills they have already learned, keep a notebook near the computer or have them keep their own journals, with step-by-step directions on everything from how to open a document to how to import clip art. Also, post these directions and tips on your class Web site so students can access the information from home. SOCIAL, ETHICAL, AND HUMAN ISSUES Along with emphasizing hands-on skills, the standards require that students learn how to use technology responsibly and ethically. For their state presentations, students may want to include a picture of the capital from the official state site, a screen shot of a MapQuest map to the main tourist attraction, or a MIDI file of the state anthem. But before they take these images and files directly from the Internet or CD-ROMs, students need to be made aware of the concept of intellectual property. Intellectual property is the ownership, by the author or creator, of any published material. Once a "work" is created, whether on a Web page, in a book, or even on a napkin, the creator owns the rights to that material. It does not need to be submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office or include the copyright symbol on the page. Intellectual property rights apply as soon as the material is created.
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