USING THE NETS-T/ ISTE Standards to promote teacher technological fluency

The International Society for Technology in Education have set up a series of standards and performance indicators for teachers when it comes to utilizing technology in the classroom. Teachers need to be proficient, knowledgeable, engaging and model how to effectively utilize educational technology. One of the main goals/standards is: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. I feel that this standard is the most important because it relates to not only the technology but also lends itself to the importance of the teacher-student relationship in a direct manner through modeling, engaging and encouraging students.

In order to facilitate and inspire effective learning and creativity a teacher must have a good grasp on the subject matter in which they are teaching. They must also be able to utilize technological tools to advance the success of students in both a face to face and virtual environment. Teachers via example must model and encourage out of the box thinking, collaborative thought processes that inspire learning with others and from others. They need to engage students in a way that encourages them to explore and come up with solutions to real-world problems. In turn he/she must be able to encourage self reflection using tools that promotes sharing of information and working together with their peers to think, plan and expand the creative process.  

All the standards set by the ISTE are important; I feel as though the standard “Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity”, is the most important one and the one that ultimately will assist in deeper learning for not only the students but for teachers as well. With that said, it is a broad standard that may pose some challenges on how to actually implement this standard effectively. ISTE offers seminars and webinars that assist teachers in expanding their technological knowledge base in a way that coincides with the new Common Core Standards. https://www.iste.org/resources/product?id=3015 . As well ISTE has a very active blog site wherein educators expand on standards and share how they implement them http://connect.iste.org/connect/recentblogs. Monterey County in California has a website that breaks down how the standards work into the common core framework; https://sites.google.com/site/mcoeccss/home/technology.

One application that is very prominent in K-5 right now is “Minecraft.” This application encourages learning from other classmates, sharing designs in engineering solutions. My daughter actually utilizes this app outside of class with several other students and it’s quite fascinating how they are able to interact not only with face to face interaction as they compare what they have built but, they also communicate virtually. ISTE has an article mentioning this application: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=156. Another good application that can be utilized is Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/.  Goodreads is a social format wherein people review, create tests , bookmark and share thoughts on books with people from all over the world. In California Renaissance learning has a program called Accelerated Reader wherein schools are utilizing this system to text understanding and track reading level comprehension. Good Reads is a great resource for students wherein they can create and or take practice tests that will help them solidify what they read.

In closing this course and the exploration of the expectations of future and present teachers in the realm of technology is extremely important. With elementary students learning HTML etc…many have technological capabilities beyond their teachers. The NETS-T standards assist teachers and propel them forward so that they can be engaging and effective.

This  video depicts a cool new platform called Graphite that aids teachers in deciding what apps are good and trustworthy; all in one solid location.