As a teacher, it is extremely important to know your states' standards and what studrnts are expected to learn throughout the year. It is our job to make sure that the standards are being met and the annual goals achieved for each student. I will list the NETS standards for you and discuss which ones I have effectively seen implemented in the classrooms that I have been in.
1. Creativity and Innovation
2. Collaboration andCommunication
3. Research and Information Fluency
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
5. Digital Citizenship
6. Technology Operations and Concepts
Creativity and Innovation: I have seen this standard practiced in many classrooms. It asks students to take something that they already know and develop new ways to display the information. Two of the best examples come from my own experience a a child in school. In the 5th grade, we were learning about the Industrial Revolution. We learned that this was a time period in American History in which many new inventions came to be. After learning about these new inventions, our teacher asked us to create our own invention and present it to the class. Back then, we used chalk boards in school and since I have pined to be a teacher for as long as I can remember, I developed a board that would use paper rather than chalk and would scroll up and down. This way, teachers would not have to rewrite their notes every year. My second example was for Science. We learned about Recycling and deforestation. We were told to write a book report on the importance of Recycling and to come up with a creative way to present the information to the class. Being that I was always shy, it was obvious that the best way for me to present the information was by changing the words to the song Achy Breaky Heart to fit the topic of pollution and singing the new lyrics in front of the class via a karaoke machine. Much of the information to do these two projects was found by using the internet.
2. Communication and Collaboration: I have not yet witnessed this being done in elementary schools, but I am just becoming familiar with what this standard expects students to do. It expects students to be able to communicate and collaborate with each other via technology. In my college course, we are just learning how to use webcams and other sites to interact with our peers and collaborate on group projects. I do believe, however, that teachers need more training before this can effectively be done in the elementary classrooms.
3. Research and Information Fluency: I believe that this standard is one of the most widely used standards in classrooms today. This standard expects students to inquire, gather information, organize information, and evaluate information by using technology. Students today are often given projects or topics that the teacher knows a computer will be needed for. Students may be given a research topic about a person or a country and may be provided a list of educational websites where the information can be found. Students will then go to these websites, find the informaion that they are looking for, organize the information and evaluate whether or not the website was helpful in attaining their goal. Often, this information gathered will then be typed into a report to be handed in to the teacher.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Standards 3 and 4 go together. For standard 4, however, students will be the ones determining which websites to use. Students will need to figure out which websites have the most accurate information and how they know this to be true. Again, this standard is widely used, because within this standard, students can conduct research and experiments. Technology can be used to keep track of data that students gather from their experiments over a given period of time. Here, students also use graphs, charts, or maps to display their problems and data.
5. Digital Citizenship: I believe that this is the most widely used standard today. In every single classroom that I have been in, students look forward to going on the computer. Often, it is an extrinsic reward that students receive for doing well in school. Students also enjoy using newer tchnologies such as smart boards. I have observed classroom teachers who use smart boards with their classes. If the teacher asks for a volunteer, nearly all hands race up into the air. Students like being able to move what they see on a screen. Students also enjoy sharing computers and working together to find information on the internet and then sharing what they learned with the class.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts: In classrooms today, students know many of the terms and concepts about computers. However, students do not always know how to effectively use these things. I think that this may be difficult for some of the teachers to explain to their students, which is why it is only starting to take off in the classrooms. Although, it is definitely there, many more teachers need to be trained on how to use this standard within their classrooms.
I feel as though I am prepared to meet most of these standards. I do need more training with some of the newer technology, such as the smart boards. Once I have been trained on how to use these tools, my lessons for students will be even more intriguing and innovative. They will not only engage students in listening to me. They will allow students to use the technology to explore on their own and share with the rest of us what they learn. In order for students to receive the most out of using the technology, teachers must be very knowledeable about how the technology works and what their puropse is for using it at any given time.
Below is the link for the NETS standards:
http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students/nets-student-standards-2007.aspx
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