Tracking U.S. Trends

The article that I read was called Tracking US. Trends and it went through each state and which ones are being responsible for incorporating technology into the school.  This article looked at a study done that gave each state a grade on how they were using and incorporating the technology.  Only one state received an A.  This article is a few years old and so changes have occurred since then, but this just shows us how much work states need to put into developing better ways to teach and assess technology.  The chapter from our book talked about assessment and evaluation and according to this article very few states are requiring assessments in the form of online testing.  Also in this year the requirements of teachers even being required to have training was limited.  It is crazy how far we have come in just a few years how we are now requiring not only teachers to have training and assessments, but also students.  They did point out the number of computers per student and how this could affect the use in the classroom and that is what schools are still dealing with today.  If the schools do not have computers that are available for student use then it is hard to prepare and teach them how to be computer and technology literate.
     This article does fit somewhat in with the topic of assessment, but it almost goes even further back from just figuring out ways to test students and focuses on how teachers are not prepared and how schools are not enforcing the need for technology.  I think that training, which we have talked about in other chapters, is important and teachers are still not getting enough of it to prepare them for teaching these skills in the classroom.  How can teachers be told to assess something that they themselves do not fully understand or get prepared for.   I think it is important as teachers to try and incorporate technology in every aspect and it helps that I am young and have grown up with technology, but in order for assessment to go on schools also need to step up and give instruction for teachers to be better equipped for the new standards that are in place.