ITR: Fluency 1 and Teaching Teachers to Teach IT

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

EIA-0082520 Snyder, Lawrence University of Washington ITR: Fluency 1 and Teaching Teachers to Teach IT Fluency with information technology (FIT) is the ability to effectively use computers, networks, software and information resources now and in the future. Fluency is a new standard of IT knowledge formulated by the National Research Council's Committee on Information Technology Literacy in their report, Being Fluent With Information Technology. To enable students to continually learn IT, Fluency provides the foundations (concepts) on which to build further understanding, and the mechanisms (capabilities) to understand when more must be learned. The goal of this project is to pave the way for the widespread offering of information technology fluency courses in K-12 schools, community colleges and adult education. The project will allow the creation of a Fluency 1 curriculum whose presentation stretches over one year, allowing for a paced introduction of IT topics and time to prepare for and work on IT projects. Fluency 1 contains components of algorithmic thinking and programming and should help provide teaching guidance that is suitable to assist a present "computer literacy" teacher in teaching Fluency.