Due date: Wednesday, April 24 by 5:00pm EST
Interactivity
#4 required you to select a lesson plan and to identify teaching
strategies that ideally achieve content standards in your particular
subject area. For Interactivity #5, you will explore a second layer of
standards that both students and teachers are expected to achieve: The National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S) and The National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T).
For
this purpose you will collect some basic data from a classroom teacher
of your choice (currently working in a school that can be in New Jersey
or out-of-state) about the impact of national technology standards and
to what extent they are taught, integrated and achieved. Keep in mind, the NETS are not
considered a separate subject area. They should be accomplished
throughout your pedagogy/teaching strategies as you teach toward your
curriculum content goals. This is in contrast to the (Common
Core) standards in Technology and Engineering that the National
Assessment of Educational Progress will officially debut in 2014. [click here to see a draft of those standards]. You can see that there is overlap between the NETS and the NAEP's standards; however, the
significant difference lies in technology as a separate subject area
versus technology as a pedagogical means to another curricular end. For this interactivity, we will be using only the NETS-S and NETS-T because they are integrative by design.
Step One: Know Your Standards
First,
become familiar with the NETS-S and the NETS-T. "Familiarity" means
that you know how to locate them and you understand them. You can find
them in Appendix B (pp. 127-130) in Rethinking Technology in Schools. Additionally, you can find Student Profiles for specific grade levels by [following this link]. The NETS were originally created in 1998 and then updated in 2007 and 2008 by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
Step Two: Select a Classroom Teacher
Reach
out to a teacher that you know from fieldwork in previous or current
courses or a relative who is a teacher or any school district where you
have a contact. Any teacher will do, but the optimal choice is to select
a teacher within your content area and grade level. Ask the teacher if
you can conduct a short interview about instructional technology use in
their school and/or classroom. (If you are already a substitute teacher
and/or working in a school district, you may complete this Interactivity
in the school where you work).
Step Three: Interview the Teacher about the NETS
Once
you have secured permission to interview the teacher (In-person, by
phone, via email or using Skype are all acceptable methods), then use
the following NETS Adoption Survey
as a general guide on which to base your interview. Keep in mind if you
submit your responses, you cannot retrieve them as they go directly to
ISTE. So, record your responses in a separate document first. The survey
questions are meant to generally assess whether the teacher and the
school in which they work are successfully implementing the NETS-S. Here
are some additional suggestions/considerations:
- It is not uncommon for teachers to be unfamiliar with the NETS as many administrators are not trained in this area and cannot provide the leadership and support needed (see the NETS-A). It is therefore a good idea to present/email a copy or link to the NETS-S and NETS-T to your teacher for reference during the interview.
- You must secure their permission if you voice record the interview. Be mindful of excluding anything that the teacher says is "off the record."
- It is a good idea to let the teacher know that his/her identity will be concealed (although the school district and grade level will be mentioned) and that the interview data will be used only for purposes of a larger discussion in your teacher preparation program about technology integration in the K-12 setting.
- Make sure to document in some way the teacher's responses to the questions—either through your interview notes, voice recording or email chain.
Step Four: Share and Reflect
Describe the teacher's responses in a narrative post/paragraph on your blogspot (approximately
400-500 words). Make sure to conceal the teacher's identity (to protect
their privacy) and begin your post with some basic contextual
information about the school setting (e.g., 9th grade math teacher in
Nutley School District). As concisely as possible (in paragraph format)
address the following questions:
- Based on the survey responses, was this teacher knowledgeable about the NETS-S and/or the NETS-T? If not, what was their initial reaction when you presented those standards to them for the first time?
- Has this particular school and/or district begun to implement the NETS-S and/or the NETS-T? If not, what other technology initiatives exist to increase students' proficiency and media literacy?
- Were you surprised at any of the teacher's responses? Why or why not?
- As a future educator, how would you speak to others within your school about the NETS-S and NETS-T?
Keep
in mind that your strategies column as well as the technologies that
were either included in the lesson plan or that you added should dictate
what NETS-S indicator your students are achieving. Somewhere within
your post, please provide the link to your Google Spreadsheet. It should
be the same spreadsheet and link for Interactivity #4.
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