Technology and the Common Core

Here we are, one year since the full transition from the NC Standard Course of Study to the Common Core State Standards and NC Essential Standards. We survived. At a few points along the way, I wasn’t so convinced that it was possible. When considering the role of technology in regards to curricular transitions, I believe it to be critical.

I couldn’t have made the transition without my own technological connections. I am a Twitter girl (chat with me at @kellyhines), blogger (Keeping Kids First), and virtual PLN kind of person. The transition to the Common Core Standards was great, in that respect, because my network of educators across the country were finally teaching the same things at the same time that I was. I could rely on more and more web resources to be more closely aligned to curriculum and searchable based on my specific needs.

In more direct connection to my students and their learning, I don’t see how you could make the transition without including technology. The focus of the Common Core State Standards is Career and College Readiness. There are few careers that exist today, let alone the prospects for when our students are entering the workforce in the next 15 or so years. If our students are to be prepared for their futures, they have to be comfortable with technology as a tool for learning, sharing, communicating, and collaborating. It should never be about a specific program or current fad in web 2.0 tools. Rather, teaching using technology should be about looking at tools for sharing and learning that students might not have considered for that purpose. They should also be learning to be adaptable to changing technologies, rather than reliant upon one confined skill set.

The information available through technological connections is the basis for all curriculum of the NC Essential Standards and Common Core State Standards. Whether it is an expert in the field, primary source text, or collaborative efforts from co-learners across the globe, technology will be the glue that holds together the curriculum and needed skills of our future.

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc