Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS

The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS state that Pre-K students must be exposed to a variety of technology so that they will expand their ability to acquire information, solve problems and communicate with others. Pre-K students will benefit from using engaging, age-appropriate and challenging software that will increase their learning of curriculum content. The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS are provided to give young students a springboard for learning technology throughout their lives.

Pre-K students learn that technology enhances are lives and will be exposed to technology including computers, voice/sound recorders, televisions, digital cameras, personal digital assistants, MP3 devices and/or iPods. It is this exposure to basic technology that helps young students feel comfortable with using technology and confidents in using technology throughout their lives. The Pre-K Technology Applications TEKS begin with the students exposure to a variety of computer input devices, such as mouse, keyboard, voice/sound recorder, touch screen, and CD-ROM and moves to the student being able to use software to express and create the student’s own ideas. The TEKS finally move to where the Pre-K student is able to recognize that information is accessible through the use of technology.

A spiraling curriculum is a curriculum that exposes students to a wide variety of concepts over and over again and at varying degrees of difficulty. A spiraling curriculum is the basis for the TEKS. After completing a vertical alignment of the TEKS, I discovered that the TEKS spiral or scaffold as the concepts learned in one grade level are repeated in the subsequent grade levels; however the level of difficulty has increased in the subsequent grade levels. For example, Matter is taught in Kindergarten, however, in each of the following years, the TEKS become increasingly more sophisticated and the students are expected to build on their prior knowledge so that they can comprehend the more sophisticated concepts of buoyancy and density.The Technology TEKS are also spiraling. The Pre-K TEKS for technology expose the students to basic technology that is grade-level appropriate. Because each child learns at a different rate, the spiraling curriculum of the Technology TEKS allows for children who are not ready to understand that they can create their own ideas using technology to further learn that concept in subsequent grades. In the spiraling curriculum the student does not stay at the level until he/she masters the concept, but moves on and then revisits the concepts in the following years.
November 27, 2009 7:31 AM