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This is an area for us to share our ideas and offer feedback in regards to incorporating technology into education. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

ISTE STandards (Student v. Educator)

Abriana Iverson

Comparative Analysis  

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards are standards that address and guide the convergence of technology and education. As access to the internet increased and technology advanced, the ISTE Standards were revised in 2017 to reflect a shift into having students use technology to collaborate, design, and learn (Trust, 2018). Prior to this class, I have never heard of these standards, however, I have unknowingly incorporated some of them into my classroom in accordance with my state’s English Language Arts standards. 

The ISTE crafted separate standards for students and educators, but they do share some similarities. First, most of the standards overlap: learner, citizen, collaborator and designer. Learner in both sets calls for both the educator and students to set goals for themselves and interact in their respective networks. I think this standard is the easiest to implement because every person should seek to continue educating themselves and working towards improving their craft. That could occur through professional development courses, networking, and/or self reflections. The collaborator standards ask educators to work with their colleagues via technology and collaboration tools. The standards demand the same for the students as well. While the learner and collaborator standards had identical expectations for the students and educators, the standard under citizen asks educators to create the opportunities for students to engage in positive online interactions and protect their digital identities. Instead of meeting the same expectations, this requires the teacher to focus on creating the environment for students to practice the concepts. The same applies to the facilitator standard (for educators) and the computational thinker standard (for students). The teacher has to create activities that would require the students to design and apply the computational thinking that is required by the computational thinker standard (Crompton, 2023). This set of standards seem to be the most difficult to implement because it requires students to critically think, analyze data, develop models, and respond to open ended questions. All of those skills require explicit instruction and it may take a long time before students become proficient in those areas. The last standard that appeared for both is designer, but the indicators described different expectations. For the educator, the designer standards revolve around using technology to create assignments and learning opportunities. Innovative designer standards for the students, on the other hand, ask students to use technology to solve problems.  

Differences 

One noticeable difference between the ISTE standards for educators versus students is in the labeling. The one-word standards for educators seem to be more broad in what is detailed in the indicators while the two-word standards is more specific about the expectations for the students. For example, Learner asks for educators to stay up to date about the latest research in effective ways to incorporate technology into education. Empowered Learner however, asks students to be proactive in creating their learning goals and to demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals of technology. Also, the roles of the educator and the student vary. Educators are expected to model and create learning opportunities, which, is not that different from common teaching practices. However, it does indicate that the ISTE Standards prefer to use a student-centered approach. The student's version of the ISTE Standards supports that claim with an emphasis on students taking ownership of their learning, engaging in authentic learning activities, and problem solving.  

ISTE versus Effective Instruction  

Smaldino et al. (2019) outlines eight teaching practices: identify what prior knowledge the students have, recognize and plan for each student’s background, communicate the learning goals, model and teach metacognitive skills, encourage collaboration, create authentic and real-world applicable activities, provide practice opportunities and give detailed feedback. Some of those practices (set goals, encourage collaboration, use real world examples, and allow practice) are also part of the ISTE Educator Standards. This demonstrates that implementation of the standards may not require too many changes from the educators. Educators would just have to be intentional in how to use those same effective strategies but apply it to technology usage. An example could be instead of having students create a poster together, educators could encourage collaboration on a Canva or PowerPoint presentation. Students would still be working towards the learning objective while engaging in collaboration and creativity, but the platform of the assignment was changed to be aligned with both effective teaching practices and ISTE Standards.  

References 

Crompton, H. (2023). Evidence of the ISTE standards for educators leading to learning gains. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 39(4), 201–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2023.2244089Links to an external site. 

Smaldino, S. E., Lowther, D. L., & Mims, C. (2019). Instructional technology and media for learning (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall 

Trust, T. (2018). 2017 ISTE standards for educators: From teaching with technology to using technology to empower learners. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 34(1), 1–3. https://doi-org.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/10.1080/21532974.2017.1398980 

Connectivism and learning theories

Abriana Iverson

Definition 

Connectivism is a learning theory that incorporates technology and networks (Goldie, 2016; Kop & Hill, 2008). It prioritizes learning through learning communities and requires students to use discernment when encountering new information. How it also asks learners to remain open to the possibility of our current knowledge base changing as we learn new things. Though connectivism differs from the other traditional learning theories, it is most similar to constructivism. Constructivism encourages students to learn through authentic activities and exploration. They are to engage with the content using their current knowledge to help them acquire new information while completing tasks (Smaldino et al., 2019). Connectivism is comparable to that in that students are leading their learning and revising their schemas as they learn from the tasks or others. The biggest difference is that connectivism has a digital component as well.  

Practical Applications 

Connectivism might be beneficial to me when teaching students how to research. An example would be me tasking them to learn about an animal’s or plant’s life cycle. They would have to create guiding questions, think of key terms, then go through the searches. Once they chose a site or resource, they would have to first evaluate the credibility of the source, consider whether the information confirms or changes their prior knowledge then organize all the information they have gathered. They could then share their findings with a small group to consolidate and summarize their new learning. Though this would first require modeling, connectivism seems to support student learning. Students are exploring independently and updating their schemas as they gain new knowledge. Teachers could offer clarification to the information, but the students are leading their learning under this learning theory. 

References  

Goldie, J. G. S. (2016). Connectivism: A knowledge learning theory for the digital age? Medical Teacher, 38(10), 1064–1069. https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159x.2016.1173661Links to an external site. 

Kop, R., & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v9i3.523Links to an external site. 

Smaldino, S. E., Lowther, D. L., & Mims, C. (2019). Instructional technology and media for learning (12th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc. 

SAMR MODEL - A model for technology integration

Abriana Iverson

Using the chart above(Best, 2020), let me know how you would have classified the scenarios in the video! Do you agree or disagree with my answers?

Best, J. (2020). The SAMR Model Explained (With 15 Practical Examples). 3P Learning. https://www.3plearning.com/blog/connectingsamrmodel