Technology Curriculum Standards

The Michigan Curriculum Framework identifies six technology content standards.

• Using and Transferring (PDF) - All students will use and transfer technological knowledge and skills for life roles (family member, citizen, worker, consumer, lifelong learner).
• Using Information Technologies (PDF) - All students will use technologies to input, retrieve, organize, manipulate, evaluate, and communicate information.
  • General Hardware/Software Skills
  • Keyboarding Skills
  • Word Processing and Desktop Publishing
  • Spreadsheet Skills
  • Database Skills
  • Presentation Skills
  • Online Research and Telecommunication Skills
• Applying Appropriate Technologies (PDF) - All students will apply appropriate technologies to critical thinking, creative expression, and decision-making skills.
• Employing Systematic Approach (PDF) - All students will employ a systematic approach to technological solutions by using resources and processes to create, maintain, and improve products, systems, and environments.
• Applying Standards (PDF) - All students will apply ethical and legal standards in planning, using, and evaluating technology.
• Evaluating and Forecasting (PDF) - Students will evaluate the societal and environmental impacts of technology and forecast alternative uses and possible consequences to make informed civic, social, and economic decisions.

This K-12 technology curriculum provides a framework of specific technology benchmarks and the grade levels or subject areas where the benchmarks should be addressed. Teachers in those grade levels and subject areas should have assistance in designing the actual lessons that integrate technology into their subject area. Vocabulary related to the K-12 technology curriculum includes:

• Michigan Curriculum Framework - provides content, teaching and learning,
  assessment, and professional development standards for most academic areas.
• Model curriculum - a curriculum and instructional program that provides all students a reasonable opportunity to achieve the knowledge and skills within a given content area.
• Content Standards - essential "learnings" for all students; provides a description of what students should know and be able to do.
• Benchmarks - indicators of student expectations at various developmental levels such as elementary, middle school, and high school.

The growth and use of technology will be forever changing. As a result, some educators hold the opinion that constructing a formal technology curriculum is unproductive. The K-12 Technology Curriculum Committee agrees that the curriculum will need to change as increased competencies and standards also change. The two-year development of this curriculum should therefore be considered a commencing rather than a culminating activity.