ISTE

I have to write that I really liked all the activities we had in class last Wednesday! I had some thoughts and reflections while doing them, but now when I have the ISTE in front of me, I will just go over the standards one by one, and share what I think about it with connection to the activities.



Standards for teachers:

1. "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity...
a. Promote, support and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness".

I think this standard (1a) applies for all activities. Spilt Milk activity encouraged using students' imagination and creativeness by thinking of a new image that would fit in the story. In Rosie's walk students had to be creative by thinking about new examples for prepositions they learned from the story. I Spy is the most challenging of all in terms of encouraging student's innovative thinking and inventiveness skills, as it required students to take random objects and create a short poem which connects all of them together.

2. "Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning....
a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.
b. develop tech-enriched learning environments that tenable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in their own...."
c. ...diverse learning styles..strategies..abilities.."
d. ... resulting data to inform learning and teaching."

2a - Teacher created digital opportunity for learning: In all 3 activities - Spilt Milk, Rosie's Walk and I spy, the teacher encouraged not only learning of target terms and learning material but also learning of new digital softwares and tools through self exploration. The teacher let children paint and write using Kids Pix software; take photos using digital camera and present study outcomes using Power Point presentation tool.

2b - My comment here relates specifically to the Power Point management in Rosie's Walk and I Spy. Both activities were done in groups of three and when it came to sitting in front of the Power Point, uploading pictures to the computer and manage the presentation, not all three students got equal opportunity to work and operate the technology. Here, in my opinion, the teacher has to explicitly ask that each student will make at least one Power Point slide in order for all of the group members to learn the technology.

2c - All three activities incorporated digital tools that enabled children to use their visual skills (e.g. drawing), linguistic skills (e.g. typing) and diverse learning styles. It had integrated multiple intelligences such as * individual work versus group work (Spilt milk versus Rosie's Walk and I Spy) * kynesthetic activity (Rosie's Walk) and * musical intelligence (the option to include music into a Power Point / Kids Pix softwares).

2d - All activities enabled the teacher to get good assessments of student's learning. The outcomes students presented represent in a great way whether a learning process accured or not. For example - if the student took a picture of his friends UNDER an object and wrote it on the top of the slide, the teacher can very clearly know if the student understood the term UNDER. However, in the Spilt Milk activity it might be a little difficult to know for sure, since sometimes students' painting skills, especially with a mouse, may be somewhat misleading (it requires a good fine motor skills to paint with a mouse). Hence, it can not always indicate on student's comprehension.

3.” Model digital-Age network and learning
a. Teachers…transfer current knowledge to new technologies and situations. “

This standard (3a) applies for all three activities, and I will give an example of one of them: In Rosie’s Walk, the knowledge gained was prepositions. The teacher transferred this knowledge to new technologies (e.g. digital camera, power point presentation) and situations (the student went for a walk instead of Rosie who went for a walk).

4. “Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility
b. address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner centered strategies and providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.”

All students had equitable access to computers in Spilt Milk, but, as I mentioned before, in other two activities, there is a possibility that work is not distributed equally among students. Only one student was the one who downloads files From camera to computer and created the slide show. If the teacher wants to achieve equitable access to resources and tools, she would have to explicitly and clearly ask students to do so.

5. “…engage in professional growth and leadership
d. contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self – renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community.”

I think that engaging students’ learning with innovative digital resources contributes greatly to vitality and renewal of the school community. It enables school to use not only traditional learning tools such as books and work sheets but new digital technology trough which learning objectives can be sometimes achieved more effectively.

TO BE CONTINUE... (students' standards)