Educational Technology Standards and ISB—where will we go from here?

I took the assignment on reading about NETS a step further and tied it with ISB’s Enduring Understandings and Essentail Questions and Andrew Torris’ blog post “When is it too much? AND When do we say “DO IT or GO!”?

Four inputs for effective technological growth in a school are the administration, the teachers, the students, and the community. We course students were told ISB supports the NETS standards for educational technology, we are constantly improving the hardware to make this possible, and we are having this coursework to support these standards. Andrew Torris’ blog post “When is it too much? AND When do we say “DO IT or GO!”? suggests a “PD that is voluntary [like this course is] results in just a few [in our case a significant minority] “interested” teachers showing up, and the technology use being enhanced in classrooms where there is already integration already going on.”

Where will ISB go from here? The Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions ISB adopted state “students will begin to understand” the various aspects of educational technology. Does our strategic plan envision a move toward making this understanding more enduring? Will teachers be required to take educational technology PD in the next couple years? Will teacher evaluations include requirements for demonstrating more current educational technology use in the classroom? Will our future hiring practices reflect such a commitment? To what extent are we already screening teachers for digital dexterity?

At first glance, the Performance Indicators look formidable. I look forward to the discussion of these issues in the course as I look forward to moving forward in effectively using these technologies.