ISTE NETS Standard 5 – Online Learning Communities and the Furthering of Technology Skills

Online learning communities can be very helpful to teachers who are seeking inventive ideas and tips or who wish to share their knowledge with others. Sites like PBSteachers.org and Edutopia allow teachers and other educators to engage in professional discussions about a variety of topics. Teachers are always looking for ways to increase their effectiveness in the classroom, and inspiration often comes from fellow educators. Becoming a member of an online learning community makes this a very tangible goal.  See the following link: PBS Teachers.

I will admit that I am not currently a fan of Twitter. I don’t like the direction in which our society is heading, where one’s every move can be broadcast to the public. I will say, though, that William Ferriter’s argument that Twitter can be valuable to teachers was convincing. If used in an appropriate, professional way, I can see how Twitter could be beneficial to a teacher’s career. I still don’t know that I would personally join Twitter for that reason, however.

Standard 5 emphasizes the idea of “technology infusion” in schools. I, as a teacher, should be aiming for this end result. Technology has already made a big appearance in education in the form of SMART boards, document cameras, computers, etc. But I should be aware of what’s new and could benefit my students, and then work to bring it to my school and implement it in my classroom, if possible.

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ISTE NETS Standard 4 – Digital etiquette and responsibility

Digital etiquette seems to be a concept that is completely foreign to students nowadays–even adults, well out of high school and college. While I was reading Digital Citizenship: Addressing Appropriate Technology Behavior, I was shocked at the statistic that 42% of people say they would answer the phone during a one-on-one conversation–and then I remembered that I’ve done that before, always with a comment such as “I really need to take this call.” I’ve fooled myself into thinking that answering the phone is more important than being courteous to the person I’m conversing with. With that said, I’m very aware that I should be included in the group of people who display poor digital etiquette. But now that I will have students, I’m a role model and my habits and mindsets need to shift.

I think that this issue will only worsen in coming years unless educators decide to take a definitive stance against the violation of digital etiquette. And, too, I think it’s up to us educators to model good digital etiquette for our students. Many of my 2nd grade students have cell-phones of their own–at 7 and 8 years old! Lessons on digital etiquette should not be withheld from students of this age, because it’s clear that they are part of the problem–or will be in just a few years. Why not nip the problem in the bud now, rather than wait until they’ve lost all ability to distinguish between what is appropriate and what isn’t?

One of the many benefits of technology includes the ease with which one write back and forth with an international pen pal. To my understanding, such an activity would fit with Standard 4d, and I would absolutely LOVE to do something like that in my classroom one day. Too few students have no to little understanding of the great big world they live in. Their communities and cities constitute the region they’re familiar with. Expanding their minds by assigning them pen pals who live in other parts of the world sounds simultaneously really fun and really educational. The internet has made fun, enriching activities like this easy and accessible.

Another very controversial and often misunderstood topic is that of copyright law. Students need to be educated on what it means to be good digital citizens in this specific area. See the following website for a WebQuest-like activity for elementary schoolers on the topic of copyright law: Copyright – An Interactive Journey.

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ISTE NETS Standard 2 Reflection

After re-reading Standard 2, I realized just how perfectly WebQuests can fulfill its goals. WebQuests allow teachers to create personalized, technological learning experiences, taking into account their students needs and ability levels. They can also create assessments based specifically on their students’ ability to navigate and use the Internet properly and intelligently, which directly relates to the 4th sub-standard of Standard 2. Students in this day and age need to be well-versed in everything computers and the Internet have to offer, and WebQuests could be the perfect way to assess students in that area. The Internet is such an interactive, multifaceted tool. Endless resources are waiting to be found and utilized in the classroom. WebQuests, if made well, invite students to take advantage of these resources to enrich the learning they’ve been doing in the classroom. I very much enjoyed creating my own WebQuest, as an assignment for my Teaching with Technology course. It cemented in my mind the conviction that the Internet is a powerful tool for teachers. Peruse my WebQuest on child soldiers here.

Of all the articles in the Readings folder for Standard 2, I found the article about Creative Commons to be the most helpful and exciting. I hadn’t been aware that copyright laws were so rigid. It’s unfortunate that before Creative Commons came into existence authors/creators didn’t have an easy way to share their work–while requiring attribution–without worrying that copyright laws would forbid it. It shocked me that, “similarly, there was no place for members of the public to go to find new works that they were free to reuse and remix without paying fees” (Kleinman, 2008). Creative Commons is a really exciting resource for teachers! We’re free to browse the pictures and other media available on the website and incorporate our findings in our lessons. We live in a world that is very visually-oriented, probably more than ever before, so I think it’s important that teachers use images and other media as often as possible. It seems that students these days respond best to visual stimulation; not merely a Powerpoint with bullet points, but lessons that have engaging and relevant visuals.

At my elementary school, my students do a computer program called VMath Live. They also do one called Read Naturally. Both of these programs have personalized settings for every student. Students get immediate feedback about their efforts, and since it’s an individualized learning experience, there’s less of a chance that anyone will be ashamed about being at a lower ability level than others. This ties in to sub-standard 3 of Standard 2, because both programs are highly customized for every student’s needs.

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ISTE NETS Standard 1

I think it’s likely that many children do not realize the sheer wealth of information that the Internet contains. A majority of them use it for games and entertainment, but little do they know the educational tools that are available to them: tools that will keep their attention while increasing their knowledge base for a certain subject of subject(s). I’ve done several Webquests in the last few years, always for class assignments. I’ve been very impressed with their wide range of subjects and concentrations. I have confidence that, were I in need of a very specific Webquest but couldn’t find one, I could custom-make my own. This is exciting to me! Our current culture is absolutely fixated on anything that has a screen–TV, Nintendo DSi, Xbox, cell-phones, computers–and I think it’s important for teachers to understand this and use this fact to their advantage in the classroom. For instance, I’ve created a pageflakes website on which I hope to post information for my future students and their parents. In addition to posting information, I hope to include educational games (e.g. sudoku puzzles), links to helpful websites, and opportunities for my students to practice (online) concepts/ideas we’ve been learning in class. It will be an interactive, fun educational tool through which my students, their families and I can keep in close contact. Here’s the link to my pageflakes website: http://www.pageflakes.com/default.aspx?u=28029311

Standard 1 repeatedly mentions the use of collaboration in the classroom. According to Crook (1997), “one creative force driving a collaboration may be a certain sense of community that emerges within the overlapping experiences of solving some problem” (p. 6). In my own schooling, I have found that to be very true. There’s something about working together that makes me want to accomplish more, learn more, discover more. And I often find that I feel a certain closeness to my fellow group members. As far as integrating technology and collaboration, I’m a little fuzzy on that idea. I suppose that could mean a lot of things, such as asking students to create a Powerpoint presentation or do a Webquest together. As I’ve already said, anything Internet-related usually catches the interest of students, and when asked to collaborate on something like that, I would think that student motivation would be really high. One thing I will say about collaboration is that it’s important to refrain from asking students to learn only or mostly in that way. They need to know how to be independent students as well as how to work in teams.

At my elementary school, we have a computer lab. Three times a week, my students go to this lab and work on different subjects. On Mondays, we go for writing. Students have already pre-written their stories and once in the lab, they’re allowed to type them out and thereby “publish” them. They’re allowed to insert pictures and make their stories their own, which results in varied student creativity and output. On Tuesdays, we go to the lab to do Reading Naturally, which is a program that requires students to read passages, work with key vocab words, and “pass” each passage with a teacher looking on. Students really enjoy it. They keep their headphones on and immersed themselves in the world of reading. Most importantly, they are rarely distracted by their classmates, which is unheard of when we’re doing independent reading in the classroom. Finally, on Thursdays, we go to the lab to do VMath Live, which gives students the opportunity to work on all the major math concepts we’ve been working on and then some. In all these cases, students are fully engaged and interested in what they’re doing, and, at least with the writing, they’re allowed quite a bit of creativity.

Additionally, my mentor teacher and I frequently use the ELMO in our classroom to model ideas and concepts. This way, all students can clearly see what they need to do. We also use it to share student work with the class, to help them understand what we expect and also to reward those who did the worksheet or assignment correctly.

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