Where is the test? Where is the checklist of tech skills?
Some educators looking at TechYES may be wondering where we hid the list of technology skills every eighth grader should master. Look no further. There is no such checklist. Tech skills are like a camel, a horse designed by a committee. Traditional approaches to computer literacy instruction diminish the intellectual and creative potential of this most powerful knowledge machine. When faced with the challenge of preparing students to be technologically literate by the end of eighth grade, teams of well-meaning adults embarked on a process of determining what an eighth grader should know. This inevitably leads to the construction of a bottomless pit of arcane tech skills in checklist form. Schools have the option of purchasing curriculum that turns using scrollbars into a four-year scope and sequence. Proclamations that all children will use a mouse leads to the inevitable questions, “One or two button”? “With or without a scrollbar”? Worst of all, such curricular approaches are needles
