Week Nine Reading

Browse the Free Technology for Teachers blog: http:// www.freetech4teachers.com/

I love, love, love the idea of gathering and displaying feedback from students via text using Wiffiti (March 7, 2012). After writing my book review on “Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education” I have been thinking more and more about allowing students to use cell phones in class, by creating activities that use cell phones as a learning tool- much like an iPad. Of course a problems with this include school wide bans on cell phones, lack of student access to cell phones and competition between students based on the “quality” of their cell phones.

In today’s school environment there is a problem with increases in bullying because of the greater anonymity allowed by many tech toys. I believe that the growth of this greater anonymity can be turned around in the classroom by letting this anonymity be the initial step to develop group discussion when it might be difficult to achieve otherwise. The important aspect of this tool is letting students get their ideas out there- even when they are not comfortable sharing thoughts and feelings in a group situation. The “zap” feature to maintain G-rated content is appealing too, as it would be easier to convince a principal that this is an appropriate classroom tool. I’m going to try this out this weekendJ

The historical Facebook exercise (Historical Facebook- Facebook for Dead People (Monday, August 9, 2010) is interesting too- I wish Facebook allowed this to be “live”. An entire semester could be based on developing historical fact based relationships amongst historical figures to allow students to really understand the people, as well as, the context in which important events occurred.

International Society for Technology in Education (2007). National educational technology standards for students and NETS for teachers. Available at iste.org/nets

It is interesting that there are standards for both students and teachers, but still they are both so broad. I’d like to see these standards broken down by grade level. This would allow teachers to more easily plug these standards into a district technology curriculum. I believe that is what is really lacking in most districts, continuity in what is learned from grade to grade across subjects.

For this reason, I like the 2009 Michigan Educational Technology Standards for Students (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/METS_K-2_129581_7.pdf). These standards list specific tasks to be achieved in technology literacy broken down by grade level (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12). I find this document to be more user friendly. These standards provide a roadmap to develop class, school and district curriculums, not just broad concepts and goals. Were these standards developed as a direct response to “No Child Left Behind”?

I wonder what others think about these standards and how they are utilized in schools, in comparison to the ISTE Standards and AASL's Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Which ones should be/are used?

Fontichiaro, K., Moreillon, J., and Abilock, D.. (2009). “How do school librarians fit in? Our student learning responsibilities and the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers.” Knowledge quest 38:2, Nov-Dec.

Showing the relationships between the NETS*T and the "School Librarian's Bill of Responsibilities" helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a connection between what School Librarians should do and how they (as teachers) should approach technology learning in the classroom. My previous question has been answered, it looks like the NET-S and NET-T outcome based standards are being embraced by many districts because of their simplicity. I think that is my problem with these standards- they are outcome based. It’s all about backward design, which I am still trying to wrap my head around. Yes, give me the goals and I will achieve them, I just need a little guidance to get me there. I would be the person that would take the 2009 Michigan Educational Technology Standards for Students (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/METS_K-2_129581_7.pdf) and figure out how they can be applied to achieve the outcome based goals of the ISTE standards.

Coatney: - Pride and Prejudice and technology leadership