Educational Leadership - September 2009

for each, and designating specific states for farming genetically modified products, which would lessen the chances of cross-contamination.

Standard 5: Digital Citizenship

Standard 5 requires students to understand the ethical and societal issues surrounding digital technology and to practice responsible behavior. Students enrolled in the Project Lead the Way engineering course at Niles North High School in suburban Chicago partnered with PCTel to explore various issues related to laptop usage by designing an inventory and tracking system for the school’s Netbooks to ensure that students used the Netbooks appropriately and returned them to the lab.

Students in rural New Athens explored the lack of connectivity in small

communities. They began their hands-on learning about connectivity by developing a way to connect the school’s gym to the school’s intranet. They then looked at security and acceptable use issues and created a plan for the city council to provide wireless access to the community.

Standard 6: Technology Operations and Concepts Problems related to Standard 6 required students to manage complicated systems. The Nestlé Distribution Center in DeKalb

is a complex operation that needs to track the thousands of pallets that enter the warehouse each day. Industrial technology students in rural Rochelle visited the Nestlé warehouse to better understand the problem and researched various tools available to inventory the pallets.

One team developed a plan using radio frequency identification tags; another team’s plan required strategically placed video cameras. Students researched how much it would cost to build the equipment, and the teacher

Read about how other schools have incorporated projects in their curriculums in the online-only EL article “Managing Messy Learning” by Suzie Boss at ww.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/sept09/vol67 /num01/ Managing_Messy_Learning.aspx EL online

Learning Plans on Demand is a Web-based teacher’s tool for individualized learning that provides a unique remediation path with formative assessments, tutorials, and practice activities aligned to each state’s standards. Learning Plans on Demand allows the teacher to quickly drill down and diagnose the exact skills each student needs to learn in the subject areas of math, science, language arts, and reading.