EdTech Avenue

Presenters are using a student response system first to poll the audience.  This is engaging the audience and keeping attention focused while also transfering content information.  Hmmm… what we should be doing in our classrooms?  Yes!!  Resources and more information at http://conferenceconnection2009.edublogs.org/.

These are NETS (standards) for Teachers.  Refer to the ISTE website for more information. These standards are broken into 4 stages in the rubric scale: Beginning > Developing > Proficient > Transformative.

Standard 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity; Performance Indicator A: promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.  In this example, a teacher is at this beginning level of this standard and show us a tool that will move them to the developing level.

Showing Blabberize – where you can take a photo of the person or animal (or anything), set where the mouth is, and make it “talk” with your voice!

Standard 2: Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments; Performance Indicator C: customize and personalize learning activities to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources. Teacher at the developing stage can move to the Proficient stage (facilitate learning, use specific strategies).

Showing their blog at edublogs.org, tour of WordPress blog.

Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility; Performance Indicator B: address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.

Showing the free tool “voki” (available from their website above).  Chose a character (or import a picture) and background, give it a voice by text-to-voice, record using a microphone, call in, or upload an mp3. Kids can communicate what they know very quickly and easily.

Standard 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning; Performance Indicator A: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations. Teacher moving from beginning to developing stage (plan, manage and facilitate).

Showing Wikispaces for Educators.

The are going WAY too fast.

Standard 5: Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership; Performance Indicator D: contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community. Teacher can move from developing stage to proficient (actively contribute, sharing promising practices).

Showing Elluminate. One online virtual classroom, discussion board, whiteboard, document sharing, audio/video, and more. Free for up to three people at a time. We can extend our community and our learning.

Back to Standard 3: Model Digital-Age Work and Learning; Performance Indicator B: collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.

Move from beginning stage… Edublogs are good for beginning stage. Add Blabberize to that, making it interactive, and you are moving to the developing stage. Add to that the voki element, allowing for even more customization and creativity moves to the proficient stage. Blabberize is not as interactive – voki allows for comments on the element while Blabberize has to be embedded in a comment-friendly place. Move to transformative by putting that all into an Elluminate classroom with kids collaborating together across time and space, even just showing one classroom’s work to another.

They are talking now about the “Awareness Scale.”  I’m not sure from this if it’s something that is available through ISTE on the rubric scale or if it’s something they’ve come up with.  It is being described as where to start with teachers who are not yet in the “active” phase of the standards put forth by ISTE.  These are discussions that should be happening with teachers who are not yet even to the beginning stages of integrating technology in a meaningful way.  There is a good slide in their preso that shows this scale as it compares to the NETS scale.  The presenter is willing to answer questions via email, available on the link above.

ISTE has developed a new “Seal of Alignment” for those programs who are validated by ISTE.  These can “meet” or “support” specific standards.  They examine the quality and treatment of those programs and the rigor they put into it.  Not just the product but how it is implemented is assessed.  “Quality and Alignment Assurance”

Adobe Curriculum:  Includes instructor and student materials for their product including worksheets, presentations and an assessment piece.

IC3 (Internet and Computing Core Certification): Global standard certification program that measures digital and computing literacy.  Launched in 2002.  Currently updating for the new NETS.  Certification Resources include assessments, approved courseware and practice tests.  Schools using this as test-out options, course placement, final exams, and professional development.

eMINTS (enhancing Missouri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies): A professional development resource center for schools and districts, adapting to meet local needs where necessary.  Bernie Dodge is a member of their advisory board, so they work at helping schools use webquests to meet standards.  They offer a full professional development series (2-year program).

School of Education at Johns Hopkins University: Offers an online program for a certificate in school administration and supervision, in partnership with ISTE.  This program meets fully the NETS-A standards.  They are preparing school administrators to be technology leaders.

How do you use a product and implement into your curriculum?  Learning.com rep speaking as an example being used in the Klein ISD.  Klein ISD rep speaking on use — Every student has a subscription to EasyTech from Learning.com.  This is classified as a textbook.  Fully aligned to the standards.  They developed a scope and sequence as an integral component of core content instruction (this is what we do at BT, not separating tech out).  EasyTech Lessons are then assigned for skill development.  Activities are assigned for application of skill and tied to learning objected of the core curriculum.  Technology grade is added to the report card to let parents know how they are doing in the technology mastery of skills.  Read about this program in the latest edition Learning & Leading with Technology (included in the NECC welcome bag, June/July issue, page 12).  Schools who subscribe to Learning.com’s EasyTech will now be able to share content across the system.

PBS TeacherLine: Capstone Certificate Program for teachers, aligned with NETS-T.  Year-long online professional development for teachers who are familiar with technology integration in the classroom.

Thinkfinity.org:  Tens of thousands of free resources to educators, students, and parents.  Also free professional development for how to “effectively integrate Thinkfinity online resources to enhance curriculum instruction.”  Integration Framework: Who uses the resource?  What stratgeies are going to be used – cooperative learning? discovery approach?  What classroom configuration will work best to employ this activity?  What does this activity look like for students?  How will you know if the activity is successful?  (Webinar in July on the Integration Framework.)

I’ve been trying to include some of the McREL standards in my own technology standards for IHMCS because they include some basic engineering concepts. These standards appear to come from the “Standards for Technological Literacy” from the Internationa Technology Educaiton Association (ITEA) and address technology and design in a much broader way than ISTE’s standards.

As I see it, my students are missing out on the public schools’ industrial tech classes that are offered in 7th and 8th grades and I’m the closest equivilent to that teacher. (I really only have control of my own curriculum up through 6th grade, so it’s a busy year.)

Way back when, I taught in a public Jr. High school with a well-developed industrial tech program. Kids weren’t only learning about the basics of building materials and electrical work (typical industrial tech stuff), but also the basics of computer animation, photography, genetics, etc. More recent industrial tech syllabi show an emphasis on CAD basics, the design process, and hands-on projects that incorporate math/science/tech concepts. (drag/friction/force, geometry & graphing, invention/innovation, green technologies, etc)

I certainly don’t have the time or knowledge to teach everything that an industrial tech class offers, but I am trying to break away from a computer-only curriculum.  I’ve also been looking at including some engineering-ish stuff in the lower grades, too. There are a ton of resources out there, but I’ve only recently come across the ITEA standards as a way to organize and prioritize the curriculum. My 1 trimester of 6th grade engineering/design lessons are pretty hit or miss, but I look at it as a start. If anyone else is interested in nailing down a curriculum that works for our particular limitations (lack of a budget for starters), let me know! I see this as supplementing our ISTE standards, not replacing them. You can see some of the resources I’ve gathered on my Delicous page under STEM, STEMblog (ethics and discussion topics more than activities) and Design – http://delicious.com/m.white/STEM

I”m not sure why I feel so enthused about this topic, but I do think that it might engage those kids who need more hands-on learning (kinesthetic/tactile learners…we can all name them in our classes!) and give them a chance to be successful, creative AND learn something in the process.

Below are the updated documents for the interpretation of ISTE Standards for the Archdiocese schools who wish to use them.  If you wish to collaborate on the “Resources & Lessons” documents, please email me with your Google account email address and I will share it with you (ArchSPM only, please).  You do NOT need a Google account to view the documents.  Links to the documents will also remain on a static page on this website for future reference.

Archdiocese/ISTE Standards: Grades K-2

Archdiocese/ISTE Standards: Grades 3-5

Archdiocese/ISTE Standards: Grades 6-8

Standards (gr. K-2) — Resources & Lessons

Standards (gr. 3-5) — Resources & Lessons

Standards (gr. 6-8) — Resources & Lessons

Contact me with any questions or issues with the documents.

Our first technology standards writing session was a success!  We had 14 participants and got quite a bit accomplished.  Below are links to what we have put together so far (still in early stages).  We started with the ISTE NETS for Students 2007 version and put the ISTE student profiles in what we felt were more realistic and simple terms.  We have also started to compile resources for various activities that fit different standards.  We broke into three grade-level groups: K-2, 3-5, 6-8.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have any representatives at the high school level.  THANK YOU to all those who attended and worked so hard, and thank you to Mary Kane for your support.

Grades K-2

Grades 3-5

Grades 6-8

We are planning on meeting again in place of our regular January tech meeting.  Watch your email or contact me for more information!

21st CENTURY SKILLS - http://www.flowgram.com/p/6zhbew4gth26b3

This is a presentation created on Flowgram, a tool that appears to be something many of us could use!

The content is here is incredible.  Site after site about 21st Century Skills is presented here.

CYBERSMART CURRICULUM - http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/

Cybersmart Curriculum provides free curriculum for K-12 tech literacy.

Units are arranged by broad topics -

•  Safety and Security Online
•  Manners, Bullying, and Ethics
•  Authentic Learning and Creativity
•  Research and Information Fluency
•  Twenty-First Century Challenges

ATOMIC LEARNING  http://www.atomiclearning.com

Atomic Learning created lessons called Lesson Accelerators which provide a video tutorial for each step of the lesson. They also have their how-to movies for which they’re well known.  They’ve referenced these lessons and how-to movies with NETS-S and created a searchable index.

Most movies require a subscription.  I’m not sure whether you need to have a subscription to access every lesson -?  (IHMCS authenticates by IP, so I’m not sure what others see…) However, this could be a valuable resource because it at least suggests some ideas even if you can’t access everything.

From the main page, go to Resources – Lesson Accelerators – Search by State Standards or ISTE NETS-S

It has been decided that much of our focus at our meetings with Archdiocese tech coordinators this year will be on standards.  There is no “standard” standard we are required to follow.  Though many schools are using McREL standards for much of their core curriculum, not all are.  I offered to look over the McREL technology standards to see how they relate to the ISTE NETS-S (National Educational Technology Standards for Students) so that we can possibly come up with a list for our use here in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  I am having a very difficult time with comparing the two documents and have been working on this post for almost two weeks now!  The next meeting is tomorrow, so what I have must be posted, ready or not…

The McREL standards state that “fifteen documents were identified as useful for developing content standards for technology,” including the NETS-S by ISTE, but the 1998 version of NETS-S has since been drastically revised.  Looking at the McREL standards, I am finding myself frequently asking the question, “what does that have to do with educational technology?”  Almost half of the McREL standards seem to envelop the very broad spectrum of “technology” to include science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, etc.  While I realize these are all fields related to technology, it is not focused on the same things as NETS-S, which has a smaller focus on computer and media technologies our students would be using in school.  Beyond the first three McREL standards, I find very little relationship to NETS-S from 1998 or 2007.

McREL says very little about multimedia and collaboration and nothing about authoring tools beyond a desktop publishing program.  With Web 2.0 in the forefront of our technologies today, can we afford to overlook this omission?

In my opinion, we will need to look at three different sources when creating a list of standards for the Archdiocese.  These three sources are: NETS-S from 1998, which focuses more on learning how to use computers and related technologies; NETS-S from 2007, which focuses on collaboration and creativity as well as current digital responsibilities of students, with a central focus on activities that use computer technologies rather than lessons on how to use various technologies; and McREL standards for technology, which includes much of what is contained in the previous but has some areas that relate more to industrial technology, which most of our schools do not offer before grade 9.

There is no way to merge the documents together seamlessly because of how each is organized.  So, there are three documents available here.  One is a grid that shows how I feel the McREL standards relate to NETS, side-by-side.  Another is a list of the McREL Standards, each followed by a note that refers to a NETS item.  The final document is a list of the NETS items, along with a “profile” talking about various activities students should be able to accomplish at different benchmark years, and each of these are followed by statements from the McREL standards that I felt related.  In some cases the relationship between the two was obvious, but at other times I really stretched, for example, using the category topics to link some of the McREL loosely to NETS.  Hopefully after our next meeting it will make some tiny bit of sense, but for now, here it is:

Standards – Grid

Standards – McREL base, with NETS items

Standards – NETS base, with McREL items

mcrel-tech_standards_k-2

mcrel-tech_standards_3-5

mcrel-tech_standards_6-8

I am hopeful these will download for you. Let me know of success or failure. Should we have a new category of ’standards’?

I am feeling energized after yesterday’s meeting!