Does Your School Have Technology Goals?

My 2nd grade students are very slow keyboarders. They ask where to find various punctuation marks, and some forget to put spaces between words. I realize that I entered the computer world "backwards" from my students. They have never lived in a world without them. I actually took two years of typing in high school. My mother "made" me take the first year, and she "strongly encouraged" me to take the second. I surely "rise up and call her blessed" quite often when I sit down to prepare a document. Even though the computer does so much that I used to do manually (Yes, I used to put footnotes at the bottom of a page, and I know how to center titles.), I think it helps to know HOW to do those tasks. (Ever had the computer "refuse" to perform a task and been able to "do it yourself"? I have!) So, I had a rather extensive set of keyboarding skills before I was introduced to the world of computing. My students have been confronted with the entire package--keyboarding, manipulating the mouse, following links in programs, writing, responding . . .!!!

Anyway, my school is just entering the computer age. When our current principal arrived a few years ago, she managed to create a computer lab for us with discards from other schools and the Social Security office. But sometimes I couldn't find enough working computers for all my students. Most classrooms only had two computers, and they were really old. With last year's delivery, we all have two new computers and we have our first lab with matching machines. Wow!

I think that we should have minimal goals for students to learn at each grade level. It seems reasonable to me to have a list approved county-wide. I also think it would be worthwhile for each grade level to master a specific program. That would serve two benefits: The students would arrive at middle school with strong skills related to at least 6 programs, and teachers at each grade level would become masters of the programs they teach their students.

Does your school have any guidelines for what technology you are supposed to teach your students? What do you think about having some guidelines?