Meeting the NETS-S

ISTE, TheInternational Society for Technology in Education has established a set of standards called The National Educational Technology Standards for Students.  These standards are neither grade level nor subject specific. This is the part of the standards I find most interesting.  Rather than having the standards tied to specificities they are developed to ensure that we teachers best prepare our students for a twenty-first century.  These standards help ensure best practices among educators when it comes to incorporating technology into the classroom.  They also help ensure that teachers are using technology as a tool for learning and not the learning in and of itself.

There are six components to the ISTE standards: creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts.  Each standard can be met through the use of a variety of Web 2.0 applications.

When looking at the creativity and innovation component it is important that students are able to show that they have synthesized their ideas and new learning through creation.  With a Web 2.0 tool like Glogster EDU students can make a multimedia digital poster to apply existing knowledge to create new ideas or to take notice of trends and predict outcomes.  ZooBurst allows students to create a digital story.  This 3D digital pop up book is a great tool for a student to create an original piece of work individually or with a group.

The second ISTE standard focuses on communication and collaboration.  This standard includes collaborating with other students at a distance.  Students must be able to interact, collaborate, and publish with a variety of media.  Google Apps for Education (GAFE) provides a sort of all in one safe place and space to meet this standard.  Google Docs allows all participants to type on one document at one time, while making comments on the work.  Students can also work together on presentations and then communicate through Google Hangout.  Through Google Hangout students can connect with any expert or any student from anywhere in the world.  The possibilities are endless!  Another great application to help meet this standard is Wikispaces.  It is a great collaboration tool and it is very user friendly.

Research and information fluency is the third ISTE standard.  This standard emphasis the importance of students using digital tools to collect and then in turn use the information.  Tools like Diigo or Edmodo are invaluable for groups to be able to collect, share, and then apply information collected.

All of these tools work together to allow students to meet the final three standards.  These applications help students use their critical thinking skills, problem solve, and make decisions.  They also help them demonstrate their understanding of technology while displaying digital citizenship.

There are so many choices when it comes to meeting each standard. Each tool appeals to a different type of learner.  One tool may work better for one student over another.  That same student may have a higher level of success with another tool.  It is important that students are exposed to a variety of tools and given choice whenever possible.

Resources

Transform teaching and learning. (2015, January 1). Retrieved April 10, 2015, from http://iste.org

Exploring Project Based Learning (U01a1)

How exciting it must be to be a student and a teacher in a school or classroom where Project Based Learning is being implemented well!  I watched in excitement as students tracked Monarchs’ Migrations (Curtis, 2002), started a business called Flower Power (Curtis, 2001), and designed incredible schools (Armstrong, 2002).  It was evident to me that the connections among students’ learning was strong.  Nothing was learned in vain or simply for the sake of needing to know.  Everything the students learned was learned for the sake of something.  It was being applied.  I can only imagine how much higher student motivation and engagement must be then.

In classrooms where Project Based Learning is taking place, teachers have, what seems to be a more daunting role.  While an exciting one, I look at what they are doing and facilitating in their classes and feel overwhelmed!  The teachers are not simply presenting lessons, guiding practice, and then letting the students practice a skill independently.  Rather the teacher is a weaver of learning.  They are weaving together all sorts of standards and objectives into an overall task at hand.  The objectives are all interconnected and meeting many standards at one time.  The teachers set clear goals and provide immediate feedback for students.  The teachers find a balance between challenging each learner while ensuring they have the skills to be successful for the project at hand.  Patty Vreeland, a teacher at Newsome Park Elementary sums up the work needed of a teacher well.  She states, “We’ve got to know our curriculum.  We’ve got to know the standards inside and out” (Curtis, 2001).  She goes on to “add that teachers must be willing to work harder to ensure that projects are meaningful learning experiences” (Curtis, 2001).

Students in these classrooms are active participants of their learning.  They, with guidance from their teacher, drive their learning by using skills they have mastered they take it in the direction they need to in order to achieve their task at hand.  When students, or anyone for that matter, has a choice in their learning or work engagement is higher.  If we can find the purpose of any task and we are given choice motivation is higher.  This is exactly what each student featured in these schools seems to be experiencing!

While Project Based Learning seems to be a little chaotic at first, upon closer investigation it is actually very well organized.  In Newsome Park Elementary projects are divided into phases (Curtis, 2001).  In Phase two for example, “students do field work, meet with experts, gather information from the Internet and other sources, and then compile the information in a variety of forms, from written and picture portfolios to Web pages and computer-generated brochures” (Curtis, 2001).  Phase three includes a presentation of some sort where community members, parents, students, and staff are invited to view the final project.  This was definitely the same format followed by students in Ms. Reeder’s Geometry class.  Real Architects came to view and evaluate their final school designs (Armstrong, 2002)!

Another similarity I immediately noticed among the examples was what appeared to be an extremely rich community between the students, staff, and the greater community in which the schools lived in.  Bringing in experts from the community on certain topics allowed for more than just the members of the school to be vested in the success of all students.  According to Dillion (2014), author of Edutopia.org article “The Power of Digital Story,” when students, staff, and parents feel a part of a rich community learning is only more supported and enhanced by all.  If learning is supported in every aspect of a students’ life then the learning experience taking place is going to be one of more value.  If there is more purpose in what the student is learning then their engagement will be higher.

Each of these classrooms were also full of autonomy, mastery, and purpose (Pink, 2006).  The students were working with skills they had mastered and using those skills had a purpose.  There was a high level of autonomy.  While the teachers were clearly facilitating the learning and steering it in appropriate and organized directions there was still a high level of autonomy among the students.  There was even a high level of autonomy among the teachers as well.  While they were all meeting the necessary standards, how they reached those standards among their students was up to them and their learning communities.

Resources

Armstrong, S. (February 11, 2002). Edutopia: Geometry Students Angle into

Architecture through Project Based Learning. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/geometry-real-world-students-architects

Curtis, D. (October 1, 2001). Edutopia: More Fun Than a Barrel of …Worms?   Retrieved                    from http://www.edutopia.org/more-fun-barrel-worms

Curtis, D. (June 6, 2002). Edutopia: March of the Monarchs: Students’ Follow the Butterflies’                  Migration. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/march-monarchs

Dillon, B. (2014, December 15).  The power of digital story. Retrieved March 2, 2015  from                  http://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon

Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future.   New York: Riverhead          Books.