Analyzing ISTE Standards for Students

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a great day today. Today, we are going to look at analyzing the ISTE standards for students, really focusing in on providing students with the ability to analyze, select, and align the ISTE student students standards when we're working in a lesson or unit. I've chosen a fun quote today by JK Rowling from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which says "Never try to understand the students. They hate it." Obviously, this is a little bit of a joke. But I think it's sort of a funny way to investigate really looking at what we want our students to know.

By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to review the ISTE standards. You'll be able to examine how to align the ISTE standards with selected content standards. And you'll be able to use this knowledge to help create content objectives and I can statements for your students.

First, let's review the ISTE standards for students. You can find these ISTE standards at ISTE.org/standards/standardsforstudents. This is a wonderful website that really helps you focus in on what these standards look like.

Now, I would like to go ahead and review what these ISTE standards are for students specifically. So the first ISTE is standard for students have to do with creativity and innovation. This is really ensuring that students have the ability to kind of construct their own knowledge of information, and then from that knowledge, be able to develop certain products, using that technology.

Number two is communication and collaboration. This is ensuring that students feel confident in their ability to communicate, using the various technological resources that are offered to them, as well as to collaborate with other peers, using that technology and through that technology.

ISTE standard number three is research and information fluency. This is looking at a student's ability to really use technology in order to gather research and information online, and then the ability to evaluate it-- to determine whether or not it's useful or accurate information, to be used for certain educational purposes, and then to be able to incorporate that information into the work that they're doing, using that technology.

Standard number four is critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, ensuring that students are using this technology, but using it thinking critically about what they're seeing on the technology, about how they're using that technology, about conducting research, completing projects, and helping to solve certain problems that they need to as they're using that technology, either on their own or in a collaborative setting, and making sure that they are making good decisions or feel capable of making decisions when using that technology.

Standard number five is digital citizenship, ensuring that students are responsible digital citizens when using technology, both in school and out, but especially for educational purposes, and ensuring that they understand all of the ethical and legal issues that are involved with their technology use.

The final standard for the ISTE student standards is technology operations and concepts, focusing in on students understanding the technology systems that they are using, first how the system works, and then even digging a little bit deeper in why the system works that way, And really understanding the concepts that are involved in using the technology and in the development and creation of that technology.

Let's go ahead now and look at how we can align these ISTE standards to our content standards. First, what you're going to want to do is you are going to want to select the content standard that you want to use. Next, define that ISTE standard that you feel best aligns with the content standard that you've selected. The next step is to use the standards, both the ISTE standard and the content standard, to help write the I can statement, or in some cases, I can statements, that your students can use. Finally, we're going to use those I can statements to help write our learning objectives for the lesson. And the very last thing we're going to do is use the learning objectives to write a competency that is directly aligned to that.

Now, let's go ahead and take a look at an example. So the first thing we need to do is select our content standard. For the purposes of this, I've chosen the English language arts common core state standard for literacy that is 11th and 12th grade. And what that standard states is that students will initiate and participate effectively in a collaborative discussion with a number of different partners on 11, 12 topics, looking at texts and issues and building on each other's ideas to really express their own ideas persuasively. That is the content standard that I'm going to go ahead and use.

Next, I need to define the ISTE standard that's going to go along with that. For the purpose of this lesson, I've chosen standard two, communication and collaboration. I think it directly aligns with that. This focuses on students using digital media and environments to communicate and collaborate, to interact and publish with others online, and to communicate ideas and information effectively, using a variety of those media formats. Finally, the goal is to develop cultural understanding and global awareness. So we're really going to try to focus in on that as well. Also, students should be able to contribute to project teams and help solve problems.

Now, while we need to do here is to create the I can statement or I can statements for this lesson. So from the content standard, the statement that I've chosen is I can effectively communicate my ideas in group discussion and participate to build on the thoughts and comments of the others that are in my group. From the ISTE standard, I've developed the I can statement of I can use media to develop my cultural understanding and discuss and collaborate with my peers on what I have found.

Now that we have those two different Icahn statements, we can really start honing in on what the lesson is going to look like. So creating those learning objectives-- from those, I've decided that students will first research what an element of their identity looks like in various countries across the world. Students then gather for a conversation on an online meeting service or platform-- this could be something like Skype or other, Go To Meaning, different things like that-- to discuss what they found within their research. That is the learning objective and the plan.

Notice how this lesson can really be integrated with other content areas and across classrooms. This could be a wonderful thing to pair up with a world languages department. It could also be a really cool way to pair up with social studies, to really focused in on combining a lot of those skills and pushing it towards the 21st century.

Now, let's go ahead and put it all together. First, we had the objective, which is that students are going to research an element of their identity. With that research, they're going to collaborate, using a digital source, to help talk and discuss what they found. The I can statements laid out, I can effectively communicate my ideas in a group and discussions to participate and build on the thoughts and comments of my others. That's really a skill based I can statement. And then I can use media to develop my cultural understanding and discuss and collaborate with my peers on what I have found. Again, both a skills base, but also a little bit of content base, developing that cultural understanding.

Now that we've reached the end of our lesson, you are able to review the ISTE standards. You're able to examine how to align those ISTE standards with selected content standards. And you're able to use that knowledge to create content objectives and I can statements.

I want to take just a moment. Now for reflection. As you look back at all that you've learned about the ISTE standards, what do you think would be the first step you would take to begin implementing these standards into your content area? As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you might want to explore the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to really help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skillset.