Common Core & Technology

Common Core standards have the potential to improve education for millions of students. This is a very noble cause for education. With many states in our union adopting the Common Core and its reliance on computer based testing and instruction, it has dawned on those of us in education that we don't have enough technology in schools to support such a curriculum as envisioned by Common Core. This reality hit hard when we piloted the test for English and Math. Due to the limited number of computers in our school, every single computer in every department was commandeered by the administration for testing purposes and it took a month and a half to test all the students in only one grade level. We have four grade levels and taking into consideration the number of computers that we currently have, based on my calculations and including the required school holidays, it will take about seven straight months to finish testing all the students in all of our grade levels. When testing is completed, we will have only about two months of instructional time during the school year. We like to see Common Core implemented in schools but first there are some technical hurdles that we need to overcome and that is the technology aspect of education. This is a short book, easy read, I hope, that takes a complex multifaceted subject and tries to organize it in a way that many educators will feel that technology is finally within their grasp. There is light at the end of the technology tunnel and this book is an attempt to help you see that light.