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Where Does Milk Come
From? It goes without saying that technological literacy in today's increasingly technological world is a must for students exiting high school. And technology is far more than computers and distance learning. Technology is applied science - everything from buildings to bridges, plastic toys to ceramic hip joints, wheelchairs to armchairs, satellite radio to cable television. Technology creates the products and services we use every day. In its capacity to solve our current wants and needs, technology often creates as many problems as it solves, impacting the earth's delicate environmental balance. Therefore, a solid understanding of technology and its impact on society is a critical need. Unfortunately, technological literacy is not adequately addressed within curricula presented by most public schools. According to the National Science Foundation, if an eighth grade student cannot fully describe the production pathway that milk takes from cow to clean, cold, plastic container on a kitchen table, then the child is not technologically-literate. He will not be equipped to understand the complex interactions between technological advancement and society, and will not be able to make informed decisions as a consumer and voter. And within the more limited focus of computer technology, if a student is not able to use common computer software like word processing, database, and spreadsheet applications, she will not succeed in the world of business and will probably have a more difficult time succeeding in college. That is why the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, through its committees on education known as the Business Coalition for Educational Excellence, led the way in developing and establishing the new Technological Literacy Standards within the state's Core Curriculum Content Standards. These standards define what ALL students should know and be able to do within this critical content area. The Technological Literacy Standards define two equally important areas of learning:
The business community considers these literacies to be so important that the Chamber of Commerce will work with the Department of Education to develop and deploy voluntary statewide student assessments in computer literacy and technology education. The first of these two products, the Technology Challenge (www.technologychallenge.org) is already available and will be offered to students in 20 schools in Phase One implementation during the current school year. This on-line performance-based exercise gauges student proficiencies in common software applications and will eventually be available to all schools in the state. Anyone who doubts the importance of technological literacy only needs to take a walk through history. The correlation between the emergence of historically-dominant nations and their development and use of a given era's 'cutting edge technology' is unmistakable. From Babylon to Britain, whether it be writing or sailing, technology fueled the engine of their success. And failure of a nation to stay ahead of the curve in developing or using new technology is also clearly correlated to loss of status. The United States is the predominant world power because of its technological advantage. We need to stay in that position, but will not be able to do so without a technologically-literate society and a constant stream of students entering the engineering pipeline. It is therefore incumbent on K-12 education to ensure that all students enter their adult worlds with a high degree of technological literacy, and teaching to the new standards can help make that happen. The current draft of the Technological Literacy Standards is located at http://www.nj.gov/njded/cccs/s8_tech.htm. 09-03 - New Jersey Association of Partners in Education Return to Toolkit Table of Contents
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