Great Tech Expectations: What Should Elementary Students Be Able to Do and When?

I love that you created a matrix for this. Teachers are slowly realizing that it is becoming an added responsibility to make sure our students are not only fluent readers and mathematicians but also fluent technologically. I liked the inclusion of privacy settings as a skill on there, and introducing it at an early age. The only thing that I would add would be Word processing software and spreadsheet software. As a math and science teacher I use both and spend quite a bit of time teaching them the ins and outs and how to navigate around.

As a first grade teacher I am always worried that I am pushing too hard or not enough in terms of what my students can do on the computer. This matrix is a great guide to as to what areas I should push a little more for my students to do and what area should I either fall back on and provide more opportunities for practice. I like the Kidspiration idea for webbing concepts.

Thank you for this matrix. As a fifth grade teacher who is realizing that I need to integrating more technology into my lessons, this matirx is a good resource for me and where to lead my students. My school doesn't have a computer lab. Each classroom has 3 Netbooks in classrooms, with our wireless connection not always being dependable. So, to say the least, using technology is sometimes frustrating. I beleive that I need to get my students use to the keyboard and word processing as well as other forms of technology that can be integrated into my lessons. Being new to a lot of this, your matix lets me know what I should be expecting from my students. I think providing my fifth graders with some sort of pretest at the beginning of the year, to see what they can already do, might be eye-opening. Though many children are tech savvy, are they knowledgable in the basics? I wonder!

I just happened to read this post before we started three days of work to rewrite out pk-8 tech integration guide. We loved the format and used it for a starting off point for our version. We cross referenced it with the NETS for students and the assessment tool we have built to evaluate student digital portfolios. We would like you official permission to use your work (and credit it) in our expanded version.

Exactly! One can never assume technology knowledge for students. However, one thing I have found is that although there may be some divide in terms of SES and knowledge, much of the so-called knowledge "haves" have is not necessarily what we want them to learn! Yes, they can play games better than any adult, they can text until their thumbs fall off, they can find any kind of music they want. But, they need to learn to work collaboratively, understand trusted sources, learn how to become good, appropriate social digital citizens, understand content ownership, etc. And, along with that be able to save and find a file when necessary! :-)

Absolutely, retention is a problem, especially with grade 2. I would love to see what you have started to develop as I too plan to go the project route integrating the technology skills into those projects. There are two big reasons. First, your reason, it is more meaningful and fun which results in better understanding, retention and ability to apply the skills in other areas. Our district recently adopted Google Apps for Education and project-based methodology lends itself better to utilizing Web 2.0 tools. Now, I just need admin to relax and reduce their fears so they open make more of the Google Apps tools available to students.

Wonderful resource as I am outlining our curriculum. This will be very helpful! Thank you for sharing

Mary Beth, this is a terrific matrix to help people realize that developmentally, students need to do some things before they can do other things, and that they may need to review what "was covered last year" too.
Have you thought about organizing all these great activities around the NETS-S? The National Educational Technology Standards for Students were created collaboratively by ISTE and many educators and have been revised. They are used in multiple countries, not just the US, thanks to the work of ISTE.

Here's a link:
http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.aspx
The broad overview (each standard has additional parts):
•Demonstrate creativity and innovation
•Communicate and collaborate
•Conduct research and use information
•Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions
•Use technology effectively and productively

A grade 4 teacher in Georgia, Elizabeth Simmons, created computer-based activities throughout the school year to meet all the NETS-S with her students. Her class collaborated with a class in the UK. That teacher won an award for "most outstanding use of ed tech in UK schools"!
Elizabeth Simmons was invited to be the keynote of the Global Education Conference in Nov. 2010. Here's the recording of her session:
http://bit.ly/6NETS-S

Here is a link to her slides:
http://scr.bi/Gr4NETS

I hope that others who are active on the Edutopia site could help you organize the items under the NETS-S and suggest what else might be helpful to add. For those looking to fulfill the "Communicate and collaborate" standard, I recommend using the free ePals Global Community to find other teachers in 200 countries, in the largest online network of K12 teachers in the world. You can also use ePals SchoolMail for students to communicate, or ePals Student Forums for students safely asking and answering questions about their lives. (All these have translation to 58 languages.) http://www.epals.com