It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...ISTE

The ISTE Standards for Educators really got me thinking more about how I can weave the use of technology throughout my practice as a teacher. In class today, I was considering how I might be able to use technology to enhance lessons in different subject areas.

Learning about standards for every subject and content area has felt a little bit overwhelming as a newbie. However, the fish bowl activity that we did in class today made me think more about how we are set up to go into classrooms prepared to be able to use the standards to drive instruction. 

As a Learner, I will have to continue to have an open-mind and remember that there will always be new technology to learn. I will also have to realize that although I may have a solid foundation of how to use technology in the classroom, I can always benefit from PD and from learning from others who know more. This includes learning from students who often know WAY more about technology than adults sometimes give them credit for.

As a Leader, I will advocate for the use of technology in the classroom to impact teaching and learning. I also have a feeling that going into schools, I will be able to share some of my new-found skills with my colleagues who may not be as comfortable with technology as I am at this point.

As a Citizen, I will help students to create an online identity that accurately represents their character. I will encourage them to let their voice be heard and to enter the global conversation online when I can. For example, I may encourage students to give respectful, honest feedback on another student's blog post.

As a Collaborator, I will work with my colleagues to share knowledge that I have learned. This includes collaborating with individuals who may not be local to me. It is exciting to think about collaborating with a teacher who lives across the country in order to bring a rich learning experience to my students.

As a Designer, I will take advantage of the technical resources that are available to me in order to design and differentiate instruction for all students. I love the idea of designing an activity where students take collaborative notes and then addressing misconceptions and asking probing questions in a different color. I can use the information from the notes to design a lesson for the next day.

As a Facilitator, I can demonstrate the use of different technology and platforms in order to expose students to many different tools. This also provides them with the opportunity to gain experience in dabbling with technology that may be new to them. I can allow students to get creative in how they communicate their knowledge of a subject.

As an Analyst, I think that I will use the Google Suite frequently to help me stay organized as a teacher. Google Classroom can help me to keep an electronic copy of assignments at my fingertips and will allow me to provide immediate feedback to the student. Google forms will allow me to view representations of data in different ways and thus use that information to further guide my practice.