| Why a technology competency requirement?
The use of technology has become one of the basic skills for the 21st century. Our state legislature recognized this when they wrote a directive to include technology literacy as one of the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs).
The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) has defined Technology Literacy as:
“The ability to responsibly, creatively and effectively use appropriate technology to:
- Communicate
- Access, collect, manage, integrate and evaluate information
- Solve problems and create solutions
- Build and share knowledge
- Improve and enhance learning in all subject areas and experiences.” OSPI December 1, 2008
The Sumner School District has in place a technology graduation requirement based on required eighth grade national standards. Sumner District middle school students have been successful in meeting those standards. In their day to day experiences in school, students are often expected to word process papers, create graphs to display their data, research information via the World Wide Web, and make presentations. Students without basic technical literacy have a distinct disadvantage over those without these skills.
How can the technology competency requirement be met?
In the Sumner School District, the basic Technology Literacy courses are called Applied Communication. Students are enrolled in these courses 1 semester each year of middle school. Students who successfully complete these courses and meet competency, satisfy the technology requirement for graduation from high school. Students may also satisfy the technology requirement by enrolling in Digitals at one of the high schools, attending a comparable community technical college course, or by demonstrating their skills in a series of assessments. Once the technology requirement has been met there are additional computer courses available at the high schools.
The Technology Standards consists of five proficiency areas:
1) Keyboarding Test
2) Objective Test (terms and concepts)
3) Word Processing Exercise
4) Spreadsheet Task
5) PowerPoint Task
The outline of specific requirements are listed below. Click here for training and tutorials for specific skills.
Keyboarding Test
- Each student must type from a prepared manuscript for a full three minutes.
- Each mistake in the following areas is counted as one error: spelling, typing, punctuation, spacing (leaving no spaces or putting two spaces between words), indentations and capitalization, inconsistent spacing between sentences.
- Typing double words, word omissions, and word additions are also errors (each word omission and/or word addition counts as one error).
Criteria for passing: |
By meeting the criteria you will receive a score of 100%.
A score of 75% will be given when the errors are no more than 1 greater than the set criteria.
A minimum score of 75% is required to meet standard. |
25 words per minute with 3 or fewer errors |
33 words per minute with 4 or fewer errors |
42 words per minute with 5 or fewer errors |
50 words per minute with 6 or fewer errors |
58 words per minute with 7 or fewer errors |
66 words per minute with 8 or fewer errors |
75 words per minute with 9 or fewer errors |
84 words per minute with 10 or fewer errors |
Objective Test
- Each student must correctly answer a series of objective (multiple-choice) test questions.
- Questions will cover general computer information: hardware, software, information literacy, Internet/networks, viruses/spyware, and ethics/security.
Some terms to know are:
Adware
Attachments
Copyright
Email
Fair use
Fair use
Font
Hardware
Hyperlink
Input
Intellectual property
Internet
Internet access
Multimedia
Music piracy |
Output
Patent violation
Plagiarism
Presentation software
Public domain
Ram
Server
Software
Spam
Storage
Text alignment
URL
Virus
Web address
Web site
Word processor |
Criterion for passing: 75% correctly answered questions (15 out of 20 questions).
Word Processing Test
The agreed upon standard is the creation/formatting of a quality research paper. Students may use on-line citation resources during the exam.
- Type and format a research paper following the directions on the test sheet.
- Change fonts, font sizes, and font styles (bold, underlining, and italics).
- Change margins and line spacing; set, modify, and use tabs (left, right, center, and decimal), or create and format tables; create headers; insert and format images; use justification (left, right, center, and full).
- Be able to save a document.
Criteria for passing: 75%.
Spelling or Grammar errors include, but are not limited to, mistakes in the following areas: spelling; capitalization; letter duplication; word substitution; omitted or added words; punctuation; spacing between words; not using bold, italics or underlining when indicated; incorrect line spacing, margins, font size, justification, and tab placement.
Spreadsheet Test
Using Microsoft Excel, each student must be able to:
- Create, modify and save a single spreadsheet file (given the necessary information);
- Format cells/fields as appropriate and as indicated in the test directions;
- Enter calculated values in appropriate cells using Autosum with the specified format;
- Create a graph based on data included in the spreadsheet;
- Include Titles and Labels for graph;
Calculators and mental calculations may not be used.
Criteria for passing: 75%.
Spelling or Grammar errors include, but are not limited to, mistakes in the following areas: spelling; capitalization; letter duplication; word substitution; omitted or added words; punctuation; spacing between words; not using bold, italics or underlining when indicated; incorrect line spacing, margins, font size, justification, and tab placement.
Powerpoint Test
Using Microsoft PowerPoint, each student must be able to:
- Add text as directed;
- Apply animations to text entries;
- Apply slide transitions;
- Insert new slides;
- Adjust text color, font, size and style for easy readability;
- Adjust background color, texture, gradient and pattern;
- Add an image from Clip Art or the Internet to a slide;
- Create a presentation file (given the necessary information).
Criteria for passing: 75%.
Spelling or Grammar errors include, but are not limited to, mistakes in the following areas: spelling; capitalization; letter duplication; word substitution; omitted or added words; punctuation; spacing between words; not using bold, italics or underlining when indicated; incorrect line spacing, margins, font size, justification, and tab placement.
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