I am familiar with the standards for teachers and students. Currently in my school with have a technology specialist that works closely with teachers and students on a weekly bases. She comes into the classroom and teaches ‘tech minutes’ to the students which focused on a domain in the standards. After she comes in the teachers work closely with her to incorporate and continue to teach the students standards while also working to meet the teaching standards.
My overall reaction to the standards, both teacher and student, are that they are very beneficial in the twenty-first century classroom. Most students are using technology regularly at home and have wonderful things to share and contribute to what is being taught or used in the classroom. Both standards are very clear and detailed so they are easy to incorporate and understand. The student standards promote students to gain responsibility and students begin to look at their community to collaborate with others to enhance understanding on educational topics and technology. The teacher standards are clear and help to facilitate collaboration with others, even with professional development (PLC’s). I wish examples would be offered on some suggestions on how to teach and help primary grade level students.
I think there are some standards that are being met regularly and then I think there are some that need to be further evaluated and incorporated. I notice there are teachers at many different levels. Some teachers work on incorporating technology on a daily basis, that work closely with the technology specialist to make sure standards are being met, and then there are teachers that incorporate it when it is required or they are being observed and their students are not getting many of the standards. I think there needs to be more of a focus in our building for all teachers and a monitoring or evaluation form put in place to really see what is being done at each level. Many times administrators and board members need to be more onboard with the standards and how technology is used in the classroom.
How many other schools have technology specialists that are available to teach lessons and work closely with teachers to make sure standards are being met? Also, some ideas on how technology use and integration of standards can be evaluated to ensure they are being incorporated into our daily teaching.
Do you think there is not in a formal assessment of students' abilities to use technology successfully because too many other standards for assessment already exist? Also, some believe these standards need to be integrated throughout the curriculum. Thus, when assessing students' skills in areas such as math, reading, and writing, those assessments should also include students' abilities to use technology successfully. For instance, if we are to assess students' reading skills, should we also be looking at their critical reading skills to see how well they can evaluate the credentials of website authors/sponsors and the credibility of the source? Or rather do you see this skill as one that relates purely to assessing a technology critical thinking skills and not a critical reading skills?
ReplyDeleteI think that there are too many formal assessments currently which could be the reason there is not one specifically for technology. I feel like all I do is test my poor first graders. I agree that technology should be integrated into all content areas and I think the technology part should be part of the assessments and evaluations that we already use. It should all be together since they are all standards that we should be following and I teach them together in my classroom. I think the two should be integrated and worked together in order to teach both concepts and meet the standards together. For example, in my classroom we have been studying mammals in science. Next week, my students will start an animal project where they will be picking one mammal, researching facts, and then presenting it through technology. Through this the science curriculum standard can be meet as well as assessment of the research aspect of the standards as they work hand-in-hand!
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