ABC Community School

March 2, 2017

Ryan Martorello
 Integrating technology in the school is becoming a huge factor in a students
learning process. We have developed many programs through applications in technology
that it is becoming essential to have technology being used in our school systems. I am
going to discuss why schools should not abandon technology within the school system
I believe that school systems need to keep technology integrated in a learning
experience because it allows the students to expand their knowledge and growth to learn.
Technology allows students to research and independently learn on their own time. One
important issue that technology has is the communication aspect of it. Teachers cannot be
fully able to talk with students in person 24/7. The online communication that a teacher
can establish to each of his or her students is astounding. A teacher can communicate to
their students by email and creating chat rooms for teacher on student communication as
well as student on student communication. Having technology in schools also benefits the
students when it comes doing assignments.
Students can grow tired of manually doing assignments such as drafting final
papers to submit in class as well as trying to innovate different ways to make a
presentation pop out in a classroom. This is where technology comes in and plays a role.
Programs associated with Windows or Macintosh allows students to break into their
creative sides and find distinct ways to present a topic they had to do research on. Power
point presentations are one of the most used ways to present information in a classroom.
Power point allows students to include audio clips and images as well as adding certain
animations to slides with backgrounds. Programs like word allow students to form
finalized revisions of their papers in a clean written format. While there are these benefits
to having technology in schools, there is the other form of education, which is online
education.
Online education is another huge advancement for our school system. Students
who want to get an education, but do not want to go to actual public school can choose
the alternative route to an online education. Online education allows students to perform
at their own learning rate of progress without having to adhere to the standard school year
that is set up for public schools. This alternative route for the select students who enroll in
these types of schooling can still follow the guidelines for the common core standards the
school systems need to apply to all students enrolled. For this alternative route to
schooling, students can learn what they want and when they want from the courses they
are taking online without having to be restricted to the time of the standard school day
from 7am to 2pm or 3pm. These are certain examples to prove that technology in many
ways can be used as a positive reinforcement to engage a student in learning.
I hope you find from this letter given above that limiting students to only a direct
lecture instruction from a teacher is not beneficial at all to anyone. Focusing on this
method can bore the students and not allow them to try to learn. Technology is the future
of schooling and needs to continue to be integrated in it.

"Top 7 Benefits of Choosing an Online Virtual High School." VLACS. N.p., 13 Feb. 2017. Web.
03 Mar. 2017.
 Schools systems have created a certain standard for students to reach and attain
the ability of at certain grade levels. These standards are proposed to allow students to
gain the ability of being technologically inclined when faced obstacles when dealing with
technology in their classes. I will discuss differences and similarities within these
national, state of Nevada, and district levels of standards.
Each level of standards that need to meet is in the elementary, junior high, and
high school education level. For sake of standards of my teaching profession, I will be
closely looking at the standards students need to have met by 8th grade to 12th grade. For
the information fluency and research section, the national standard states that all grades
will plan strategies to guide inquiry while the Nevada standard breaks it down in the 8th
grade section says that students should know how to utilize digital tools to create their
research based inquiry to create a timeline, track their progress, and cite the sources they
find for said research project. I believe at the 8th grade level that is a reasonable
understanding of technology-based research that students are supposed to know before
entering into the secondary education level of high school. When reaching the 12th grade,
students should use all the acquired information to organize their research project in a
formal manner to present to their instructor for the class. When a student is reaching the
time of advancing from the 12th grade that this is a valuable amount of skills that will help
them organize any style of project they are faced with in their higher education years. In
the computer-performance attachment of standards, students should be able to uphold the
exceeding standards that with minimal help from the professor or teacher, they should be
able to perform the project to meet the requirements needed.
Another standard that will be incorporated in my lesson plan below is standard of
knowledge construction discussed in the ISTE standard for students. The standard for
critical thinking in relation to the standard for Nevada is Standard #5, Students develop
and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the
power of technological methods to develop and test solutions. The Nevada standard that
has been set in summary is that students are supposed to identify a problem and create
essential questions through using digital tools to guide the investigation of the authentic
problem to a solution as well as using multiple processes to explore alternative solutions.
That is for the 8th grade standard of Nevada. In my opinion, I believe that students should
be breaking into asking essential questions and looking for different solutions to their
problems they identify at the end of their middle school to entry of high school life.
While there are standards to meet, it is a long road traveling through the education
life for a student. I believe that the standards are broad in the sense that there is no actual
breakdown at the national level, but a better breakdown within the state level. I believe
that a national level should be increased slightly to better value the learning skills for
state standard requirements.
Lesson Plan
Name: Analyze my Music

Grade: 12th grade (government class)

Technology Content Standard Addressed #5: Students develop and employ strategies for
understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological
methods to develop and test solutions.

Other Content Standard Addressed #4: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and
Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research,
manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital
tools and resources.

Objective: Students will analyze a component of music in history and analyze its
components to understand its meaning to how it was aimed towards government politics.

Materials needed to facilitate the lesson: Computer with access to the Internet; A whole
computer lab for all students have access too

Suggested group size: Individual

Procedures: Student will research a certain song that correlate towards relation to
government politics. From finding said song, they dive into finding its said purpose
within the lyrics to find messages towards government.

With then, students will create a powerpoint presentation with a hyperlink to first start the
presentation with listening to full song. As well as presenting the full lyrics on the screen
after, the student will go into detail of the band/singers song of what the song means.
After explanation of the bands interpretation of the lyrics, the student will go into slides
incorporating into how it relates Government. Students are to pick 2-3 lyrical phrases to
analyze.

1st slide: Title

2nd slide: Band w/ link to music
3rd slide: Full lyrics w/ censorship if needed
4th-6th slide: students will analyze the artist view on the lyrics; incorporation in
government
7th- end

Each student will create the powerpoint presentation in computer lab in my absence
following this template of how it should be all laid out. Students will present when I
return.