Tuesday, August 18, 2009

NAEP Technological Literacy Draft

I skimmed the NAEP Technological Literacy Draft. It's looking at "technology" writ large, not just IT or computing. Seems pretty good, if uninspiring. I predict it and its assessment will be roundly ignored.

In a related note, I like the explanation/justification of computer science that some Scots are working with:

  • CS gives you intellectual tools which make you view the world in a particular way: computational thinking;
  • It is central to absolutely any future development, such as climate change for example;
  • It enables you to specify, represent and solve problems in a robust and efficient way by developing a model of what will work under many circumstances;
  • It helps you to solve problems by applying generic principles such as abstraction and modularity;
  • It helps you to visualise internally complicated processes and complex models which evolve over time.

4 comments:

Joe said...

Don't be surprised if doesn't produce some results or at very least some movement in the area of technology literacy. The power of NAEP can't be denied and almost all the major players are at the table for this. I think uninspired is an unfair statement considering the magnitude of the task (defining tech. literacy) and the divergent views of the players.

Tom Hoffman said...
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Tom Hoffman said...
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Tom Hoffman said...

Well, I guess you could say "inspired, considering the circumstances make anything actually inspiring impossible."

It seems to me that the power of NAEP can be denied. For example, Joel Klein denies it.