Program Specifications

ActionLABS

Paxton ActionLABS is a Technology Education program that meets or exceeds current International Technology Education Association (ITEA) technology for all Americans standards (TFAA).

ActionLABS also directly addresses the criteria called on by the No Child Left Behind Act, the reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the U.S. Secretary of Labor Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) recommendations for enhancement and mastery of skills and competency in the ability to use: Interpersonal Skills, Information, Technology, Resources and Systems.

The program reflects reading levels equivalent to Flesch-Kincaid readability level between 6.2 and 7.6.

The program is presented in accordance with the following:

1. The CD-ROM instruction is delivered as a mastery system with teacher control and assurance of on-task performance, as students cannot progress before prior skills and activities have been completed.

2. The multimedia curriculum delivery engages multiple learning styles. Lower functioning students, learning challenged - or ESL students - should gain access to the information and assistance with learning via embedded audio. The multimedia curriculum must have an authoring tool built into the system which enables the teacher to quickly and easily modify, add or reduce the actual content.

3. Curriculum addresses the needs of the technology standards, standards in science, mathematics and language arts, SCANS, initiatives for educational improvement from the NSF and NCTM, various School-to-Work programs, NAEP writing goals, and the NMSA guidelines for student learning and behaviors.

4. The CD-ROM has an intuitive interface minimizing student familiarization time.

5. The program includes short elements of content, visuals and video.

6. The technical objectives and academic correlations are captured via testing and reported through the classroom management system via electronic testing. Well-defined rubrics are presented and graded using a hand-held computer.

7. The modules follow a linear format with the main navigation being the forward and back arrows located at the left and right ends of the navigation bar on the bottom of the screen.

8. Each module is enhanced with hands-on activities, digital video, text references, written references, experiments, and Electronic Student Journal and module guidebook.