Blog 1
What influences teachers and students to use technology in the classroom?
ISTE stands for International Society for Technology Education, who name and describe "the standards for the use of technology in teaching and learning" on their website, ISTE.org. The standards are split up into different categories: Students, Educators, Education Leaders, Computational Thinking, Coaches, and Computer Science Educators. The student standards are listed as Empowered Learner, Digital Citizen, Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, Creative Communicator, Global Collaborator.
An ISTE student standard that is meaningful to me is the "creative communicator." The creative communicator is defined as "students [who] communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals." I find this standard important in education because it expresses the need for students to understand how to reveal themselves through many different types of platforms. As a teacher, I hope to imprint on my students the level of relevance this standard has today. Students must be able to fully express themselves with whichever tools they are given, whether or not that even includes technology.
One ISTE standard that is outside of my current skill set is the Computational Thinker. This standard is described as "students [who] develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions." I have never been the most tech-savy person so this standard is a little bit foreign to me. I also have never been interested in problem solving using arithmetic and/or technological methods.
The term, "digital native" is new to me. I, however, can understand why this term would be used to describe today's youth. People in their twenties and younger have grown up with the internet and have experienced most changes and upgrades the digital world has gone through. "Young people" did not have to learn how to use technology like the "older generations" did. These older people have been given the label "digital immigrant," which means to describe the older generation as a group that was not raised with digital technology and had to learn how to use it later in life. Growing up, many of my teachers struggled with technology in the classroom (i.e., smart boards, computer programs, and even the internet) because it was something foreign to them. Because of this, I believe my computer skills are not as developed as they could be if I had been taught by more technologically knowledgeable teachers. However, I think this is common for almost every classroom. No matter how digitally well-rounded we might assume ourselves to be now, as teachers, there will always be younger people around us (our students) who were raised in an even more digitally advanced world and who are more educated on the digital world that will be. Because of the age-gaps between us as teachers and our students there will always be a discrepancy in the level of understanding the current types of technology.
ISTE stands for International Society for Technology Education, who name and describe "the standards for the use of technology in teaching and learning" on their website, ISTE.org. The standards are split up into different categories: Students, Educators, Education Leaders, Computational Thinking, Coaches, and Computer Science Educators. The student standards are listed as Empowered Learner, Digital Citizen, Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, Creative Communicator, Global Collaborator.
An ISTE student standard that is meaningful to me is the "creative communicator." The creative communicator is defined as "students [who] communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals." I find this standard important in education because it expresses the need for students to understand how to reveal themselves through many different types of platforms. As a teacher, I hope to imprint on my students the level of relevance this standard has today. Students must be able to fully express themselves with whichever tools they are given, whether or not that even includes technology.
One ISTE standard that is outside of my current skill set is the Computational Thinker. This standard is described as "students [who] develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions." I have never been the most tech-savy person so this standard is a little bit foreign to me. I also have never been interested in problem solving using arithmetic and/or technological methods.
The term, "digital native" is new to me. I, however, can understand why this term would be used to describe today's youth. People in their twenties and younger have grown up with the internet and have experienced most changes and upgrades the digital world has gone through. "Young people" did not have to learn how to use technology like the "older generations" did. These older people have been given the label "digital immigrant," which means to describe the older generation as a group that was not raised with digital technology and had to learn how to use it later in life. Growing up, many of my teachers struggled with technology in the classroom (i.e., smart boards, computer programs, and even the internet) because it was something foreign to them. Because of this, I believe my computer skills are not as developed as they could be if I had been taught by more technologically knowledgeable teachers. However, I think this is common for almost every classroom. No matter how digitally well-rounded we might assume ourselves to be now, as teachers, there will always be younger people around us (our students) who were raised in an even more digitally advanced world and who are more educated on the digital world that will be. Because of the age-gaps between us as teachers and our students there will always be a discrepancy in the level of understanding the current types of technology.
I love your writing but you could probably format it a bit better. You can double check how it looks like through "viewing blog" and adjust the look in where you compose your blog.
ReplyDeleteComputational thinking is surely something new to a lot of people because we haven't learned any programming language. However, it emphasizes on the ability to break the big task down to small pieces that can be solved by computer automation. I hope I can introduce some of the content to you guys later in the semester. It is not hard and in fact a lot of fun!