2012-13 Year

Wow, a while year has finally gone by. As I have said before, I am not much of a blogger, but here I am again.

This last year the state of Utah did a pilot program for the "Computer Technology" class. This class is required to pass in order to graduate. In the past I have taught the IC3 standards in this class. This last year we tested out the MOS Word and Excel standards. I was one if the 60 teachers round the state that tried the new curriculum. It was a pretty tough year, but I learned so much.

One of the best things we found this year was the Microsoft Official Academic Course (or MOAC) by Wiley ( www.wiley.com/go/moac). It has really good trainings to go through with your students in order to teach them the skills they need to pass the MOS exams.

I didn't just want to give my students the book and just say "Go and learn, and don't bug me" so I developed worksheets for them to go through as we completed the exercises together.

I just finished my ESL endorsement and really enjoyed some of the skills I learned as we went through our SIOP training. So, in my worksheets I put the following:

* The standards from the MOS exams in "I can ..." statements.
* The vocabulary from the chapters in the MOAC books
* The questions listed through the MOAC books

I wouldn't show the students the book, but I would go.through the exercises with them on ky demo computer. Whenever we came up to a vocabulary word or a question on their worksheet, I would soecificaly point out the word and define it or help them to answer the question.

It has been decided by our state office of education not to use the MOS standards, but to actually go with the IC3 standards. This is an improvement from what we were doing before. While I was teaching my students the IC3 standards and having them take the IC3 exams, mist of the teachers in the state were teaching the state standards and givibg the state test. Although the standards were somewhat similar to the IC3, the teat was mostly multiple-choice questions. We are now being encouraged to have our students take industry tests.

So, one if my goals this summer is to create worksheets with standards, vocabulary, and questions for students to fill out as we go through my class trainings and the knowledge questions. I am hoping this will focus students' attention to the "why" we are doing this and not just the fun they have while doing it.