Thanks for the resource link. I’m going to look at it closely when we get back from vacation, so that I can be sure to incorporate the guidelines into our academic plans.

Thank you so much!

Unfortunately not many schools that I know of are actually encouraging students to master concepts at these levels.
My own kids have been doing almost all of their tech learning at home through family projects or suggestions I make for technology alternatives to classroom assignments. In the Gifted Kids Network http://www.giftedkidsnetwork.com all of our investigations utilize technology in some way and encourage students to work to these technology standards. The world of technology is moving so fast, being able to text, IM or search the internet is not going to serve our students as well as being able to create and collaborate.
Sandra, you are doing a great job infusing technology into the experiences your family shares. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

The more comfortable one is online, the more you’re willing to explore and figure things out for yourself.

The sad thing at the elementary school is that a close friend of mine who is an IT teacher/expert offered to give enrichment computer sessions for free. The school principal turned her down flat, because it would mean our school “wouldn’t be conforming to district standards.” Translated that means she couldn’t send the students from her school to middle school knowing more than what was offered in other schools in the district, because that would make more work for the middle school teachers.

One other thing: think of all the programs you’ve have had to learn and then relearn as newer versions have come out. My first computer class was back in the 1980’s. I quickly transferred out when I learned I had to get all the cards punched, fed into the machines and programs run on my own time, because I was just too busy. Now I look back and laugh. What good would it have done for me to stick that out? So, is it really going to be useful to teach the students specific versions of programs on out-of-date computers, because when they get to the place where they need to use the computers for work, the computers and software will be something else entirely? Just a thought…

By the way, I have noticed that Aussies are usually the only other country represented in the distance learning classes that my daughter has taken. It’s interesting that Australians have a high regard for progressive thinking.

Hopefully, we’ll find that there are more American forward-thinkers, than not.

My now 12 year old self-educated son has been out of school for more than five years, so I can’t say what the state of teaching computer skills is in our local school now, but certainly when he was there it was wholly inadequate. Nothing at all in Year 1; in Year 2 he got about half an hour at a computer a couple of days a week and played silly little ‘educational’ games that he might have enjoyed when he was three. I was very glad to have him out of there. The discrepancy between what he was allowed to do on the computer at school and what he was learning and doing on the computer at home was too ridiculous for words.

Btw, I discovered your blog via the 30 Day Challenge. If you’re looking for product ideas, you might consider getting your Digital Natives team to put together a handy ebook explaining ‘digital nativism’ to people like John McCain. As a child of the 1950s with a 12 year old Digital Native son, I’d be most interested in an intelligent overview myself.