New Tech Standards and Requirements

For our last blog assignment we were to look at the New Tech standards for students these days and think about how we would implement them in our own classrooms and what challenges we may face. I thought that most of the standards were interesting, but chose 3 to focus on.
Looking at the standards is a bit overwhelming, especially if one is not used to using technology in the classroom. However, I didn't see anything that I thought was unreasonable for students these days to have an opportunity to learn.

One standard talks about the students being able to use communication and collaboration through technology. I can think of a few ways that a teacher could implement this in the classroom. The first thing that comes to mind is the classroom podcasts that I spoke about in an early blog (Mrs. Childers Classroom). Using the ipods and Imovie, the students are able to use technology to work together, and implement all forms of literacy, while learing more about technology. Another great way to implement this standard in the classroom is to simply have a "Classroom Blog". Each student can post 1 blog per week or something along those lines and the blog can be available to other classrooms, the principal, or parents to communicate with the teacher and students about what is going on in the classroom. Both of these strategies would be a great way to implement students learning to communicate and collaborate through technology.

Another standard talks about students being able to research and gather information via technology. I think that students can start learning how to do this at a very early elementary age if the teacher is dedicated. After all, many of the young students will not even know what a "hard back textbook" is when they read high school because they will likely have iPads. Showing students how to easily research a topic on the computer in 1st grade will have them doing it with ease by 3rd. A teacher can start by having folders of appropriate websites for the younger grades and then slowly give the responsibility to the student as they grow of finding good credible sources. The key to this will be adequate time in the computer lab, or working computers or iPads in the classroom.

The last standard that I looked at was the "Digital Citizenship" standard. I think that this may be the most important as well as maybe the most obvious. Digital Citizenship basically means teaching the students from a young age about internet safety and responsibility. I think, as I said in the above standard, this can be started at a young age and the teacher can use scaffolding by gradually releasing more responsibility for the student as they learn more and more about "do's  and dont's" of internet usage. I think a great way to start this conversation each year would be to make "Technology Expectations" at the beginning of the year as a group. Just as you make "Class Expectations" allow the students to have an active role in "How do we act on the computer".


The main challenge or barrier I see as educators in meeting these standards is the availability of technology in our employing schools. We, as teachers, may need to work harder (writing grants, raising money), etc to get acceptable technology in the classroom to begin to meet these standards for our students. I think that while it may be a challenge it is not impossible. Another challenge is taking a completely un-technological group of students and expecting them to use it efficiently. That is why I think that scaffolding and starting at the youngest we can in getting students used to using technology in the classroom is the best approach.


If you are interested in these standards and want to take a look for yourself:

Technology Standards and Requirements