Assignment 1

Citation

Dettelis, Phil. 2010. "New York State Technology Education: History, the Current State of Affairs, and the Future." Technology & Engineering Teacher 70, no. 4: 34-38. Education Research Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 9, 2011).

Summary

            The history of technology education in the state of New York has changed in five significant ways since 1980 and each major change in the content and expectations within the field also meant a name change as the field sought an identity.  These names are: The Industrial Arts (1984), Technology Education (1996), Technology Education Learning Standards & Assessment (2001), Framework for Technology Education (2006) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (2009).

            Industrial Arts classes were gender specific, whereas the girls went to home economics while the boys attended shop, auto and electronics class.  The New York Education Department received encouragement to offer a course specifically aimed to create technology literate students.  In 1994, technology and computers were used synonymously suggesting that technology education still did not have much of an identity.  Two years later, the Mathematics, Science and Technology learning standards were proclaimed to the New York Education community, laying a framework for local communities to work with.  The changes were after all, occurring locally, because curriculum was not state-based and centralized, but instead dictated by Local Educational Agencies (LEAs).

            One of the more significant shifts in New York’s concept of technology education occurred 2001 while Apple boasted the iPod.  This change was a test – albeit a non-mandatory test, but a technology test nonetheless.  2006 further helped refine technology education identity in New York with seven content organizers: materials, manufacturing, information & communication, transportation, living systems, energy, environmental quality.  By 2009, the STEM acronym was used as the new hip, and well articulated term in technology education.  A national movement was beginning at this point.  Leaders recognized the need to prepare the nation for a more competitive global economy and began to prepare students to learn concepts within a context and better understand how technology works.

Reflection

            This writer used primary resources to create the overview of history technology education and although the article was specific to the New York Education Department, the observations and conclusions made from those observations apply to the nation as whole.  The increasingly competitive global market is the primary reason behind educators’ pressures to become technology literate and to create technologically literate students.  Within technology education, the leaders of the movement saw the needs to provide clear direction through more clear definitions, encourage progress, measure progress and eventually bear the fruit of their labors.

Application

            I would most likely use this article as a defense for why we study history.  Specifically in saying that any class and any subject can be linked to decisions and movements made in the past. 

Teacher NETS standard & importance

Under the first NET standard for teachers (Facilitate and Inspire Student learning and Creativity) I intend to, “promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.”  I like that this is the first standard because teachers need their students to be on the same page regarding the importance of technology literacy.  I plan to follow up on this NET in these three ways.

-          Becoming more literate myself (thoroughly completing all expectations in current class).  This also involves becoming more passionate.

-          Immediately use more technology in my sphere of influence (Teen School)

-          Include the subject of technology into curriculum (we can read above article)

Student NETS standard & importance

Students should learn Creativity and Innovation and how to identify trends and forecast possibilities in whatever subject that is studied.  It is important to make observations of what we study, and be able to articulate what it is we study.  That’s a significant part of learning.  It is conceptual.

-          I might require students to do a research (face-to-face)

-          I might also create a project that asks students to depict the world’s balance of powers in the year 2030 and reasons for their predictions.  The primary reason behind requiring technological literacy is, after all, to prepare the young people for their futures (virtual).