ISTE Standards (#1)

     I believe that it is the outside world that is influencing students and teachers to use technology in the classroom. When using a smart phone became something elementary kids started doing, they were banded in the classroom as a distraction. However, as the world has become more technology dependent, they realized the benefit of using individual devices and started providing classroom sets of iPads in public schools. By using technology in the classroom, students are able to enjoy an individualized learning system specifically for them. It further helps teachers out, by not only making grading easy, but it can provide them with individualized feedback for each student, that the teacher can use to better educate their students.
     The International Society for Technology in Education is an organization thats goal is to create a community to support educators in their technological endeavors. They go beyond just helping with technology their focus is largely on using technology ethically and responsibly in order to achieve goals such as communication, collaboration, and knowledge construction. The organization has five categories of standards for technology use in education. One standard that is meaningful to me comes from the student category (1C). It says that students will use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate learning in a variety of ways. This is meaningful to me because it is not only an obvious plus that I see to . using technology in the classroom but because feedback that informs and improves is something i wanted my whole educational career. One standard that seems out of my skill set is from a category called Computational Thinking (4A). It states that as an educator you design computational thinking activities where data can be obtained, analyzed, and represented. I think this may be a challenge for me because such activities are something that i am not familiar with.
     I understand the meaning of the term "digital natives" but i do not necessarily agree with it. Being a "digital native" means that you were born in a time that technology was already around, they either did not use often or do not even know what a landline is or photographic film. However where i disagree with this term is how many generations it has been applied too, eventually everybody will be a "digital native". I have not really experienced differences between how me and my teachers use technology, either they have used it like a "digital native" or banned all technology from their classes due to constant cheating. I honestly think that the differences between me and my future students will be that there is some new technology out, that i do not know how to work, but thanks to this class i can use the ISTE as a resource for help.