Week 1 Assignment, Part 4: Technology Applications TEKS Summary

Pre-K Technology Application TEKS

The technology applications domain of the Pre-K Guidelines requires educators serving this particular age group to expose their learners to a variety of technology skills and devices. These devices include but are not limited to computers, voice/sound recorders, televisions, digital cameras, and iPods. Furthermore, teachers need to ensure that students in this stage begin to understand that technology can enrich our lives. Pre-K students must gradually become self-assured and self-regulating technology-users by developing their own techniques for manipulating an assortment of age-appropriate technologies.

Specifically, the Pre-K technology applications domain outlines five expectations for this age group that need to be met by the end of Prekindergarten year. First, a successful Pre-K child should be able to open and navigate through software programs that are designed to boost the development of appropriate concepts. Additionally, he or she is expected to use and identify an array of computer input devices. Moreover, a Pre-K learner should be able operate voice/sound recorders and touch screens as well as express his or her own ideas using software applications. Finally, he or she must recognize that technology is an avenue to acquire information.

Laying the Foundation

Pre-K TEKS for technology set the groundwork for student performance in future grades. Prekindergarten students are expected to develop their capability to obtain information, solve problems, and communicate with others using age-appropriate technologies. Acquiring these skills at an early age would facilitate these students’ transition to a more formal and rigorous curriculum as they move up from one grade level to the next.

Spiraling Curriculum

When students are given multiple opportunities to master a particular skill, they are being exposed to a spiraling curriculum. Students greatly benefit from this design because students not only acquire the needed technology skill but they are allowed to become highly proficient and critical technology-users in the process. One important feature of the Technology Applications TEKS is that it is designed as a spiraling or scaffolding curriculum. To illustrate this, as early as Pre-K, students are expected to create and express own ideas using software applications. Products include own writings and drawings. This same standard applies to students in other grade levels but the degree of difficulty and sophistication gradually increases from year to year. In the primary grades, students are expected to use font attributes and graphics for a defined group of audience. Then, intermediate students build on the skills that they have previously learned to create spreadsheets and databases from a variety of sources. These same skills are employed in middle schools and high schools as they are required to perform more sophisticated tasks like creating interactive documents. From plain drawings to interactive documents using simulation and hypertext – this is tangible proof that Texas Technology Applications TEKS provide our students the needed support to move them forward to 21st Century and beyond.