Standard 4

Ava Long

Technology in the Classroom

Taskstream Signature Assignment

December 3, 2013

• Standard 4: Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
• Meaning: Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices (http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf).

1. How your understandings of the standards changed based on your experiences:
• Designing Lessons: This was an aspect of this class that did not occur to me that I would have to model and teach students because it seems so obvious to me, but then again I am 28 years old and have been using technology for some years now. As I was designing lessons I had to be extremely aware of how to model digital citizenship and responsibility and it was hard to figure out how to do something that seems so second nature to me. The importance of this then became really apparent to me when I started to think about the bullying aspect of today’s school environments and because I already was planning on building a classroom based on a strong foundation of community, I thought to myself to just extend this into the use of technology in the classroom. Respect and smart choices is something I want to instill in my students, especially when using technology resources. As I created my lessons for this class I tried to implement this core component and ideal into every aspect that included technology usage. Even though we try to teach students how to be responsible and respectable in the face-to-face world, it is even more important that they understand that with the world at their fingertips, there is an even larger sense of responsibility they must learn and adhere to. The legal and ethical behavior that we expect from students, the teachers must exhibit it first through continuous modeling while using the technological resources throughout teaching. We cannot expect students to be responsible and respectable if they do see us doing the same. I hope my technology integration in my lessons show my advocacy for a classroom full of technology responsible and respectable when it comes to their usage.   
• Teaching Lessons: If the importance here in this specific standard is to exhibit, advocate, model, and to teach safe and legal use of technology resources, I feel that this class and my personal years of using the world-wide web has taught how to do this effectively for my students. As for teaching in the classroom, I believe that students always need to be reminded and kept continuously aware of their responsibilities to be safe, to abide by law, and to make ethical choices in regards to using technology resources and systems. It is difficult to imagine that young children would abuse the wide availability of communication channels to bully other children or to plagiarize documents, but this does in fact happen, and teachers always need to be on their toes. Social interactions has become almost a natural way to communicate as compared to face-to-face interaction, so it is vital to teach students how this communication is to occur abiding by legal and ethical expected behaviors. Teachers are not at home with students to watch their behavior online, but they can try to teach them what is right and wrong in regards to appropriate usage and behavior so as to not become a victim of crude, unsafe, and illegal behaviors while using technology.
• Assessing Student (Peer) Artifacts: Teachers need always be guiding and facilitating students in their learning, keeping them fully aware of what is expected of them. In order for teachers to assess their students, the students need what is expected before they begin completing the assigned task at hand. As the teacher, I need to first teach the students what ethical and legal responsibility is in regards to technology use in the classroom, and promote the behavior that aligns with these expectations by modeling it myself. If they see how I use the technological world, then the hope would be that the students would mirror that behavior. It is important to develop this behavior from the beginning of year and then be consistent in the exhibition of it throughout the school year. As for assessing students’ artifacts, I will ensure that I am always checking for understanding guidelines for exhibiting the safe, legal, and ethical behaviors while using technology in the classroom. If students do not abide by these expectations, then there usage will be demoted to paper-pencils-and books. I believe technology in the classroom is somewhat a luxury and if students do not understand that there is a certain, expected behavior that goes along with the usage of it, then I would agree that it should be taken away as an Xbox would be taken away for punishment. I do expect to “raise” responsible and respectful students, and will try to instill these character traits in all aspects of my classroom.
2. What you learned about preparation and teaching from your peers:
• Lessons: Coming to the end of this comprehensive reflection, I can say that what I have learned about being prepared and teaching from my peers has been extremely helpful to building background knowledge that I will be able to activate and use when I finally become an educator. Teaching has been my goal for so many years now that I feel I am so close, but this class has shown me that I still have so much to learn. It astounded me when I first came to this class feeling that I was not going to gain much more than what I thought I already knew, but alas that was not the case. Quite the opposite actually and I am glad that my peers and teacher did not shut me out and accepted that I needed some guidance in learning how to integrate technology into the classroom. Our teacher must have said several times how important reflection was for improving my teaching. My knowledge gained throughout this entire education program cannot be measured in any written formula or expression, only in who I will become as an educator, but it will be thanks to the collaboration and discussion within this program and the many realizations and willingness to open my eyes and see past what I thought I knew and expose myself to the endless possibilities that technology has to offer. I can even say that I learned more about being safe, legal, and ethical in the technology world and what I can do to ensure the safe, legal, and ethical use of my students.
• Feedback: Feedback is so terribly important for all parties involved in the educational realm because it is reflection on what is happening inside and outside the classroom. I hope to encourage strong feedback from my students, peers, collaborators, teachers in my schooling programs, the administration of the district I work in, and parents. Feedback is just one of the many aspects of teaching that helps teachers become better educators. The feedback I received from my teacher(s) and peers during my duration of this education program has made me a better future educator. I know sometimes I come off as someone who thinks they know everything, but I know I do not know everything and even though there have been times that people have had to pull me aside to give me advice or point out an area I need to fix or improve on, I have had to take heed of what they said or thought. I take everything personally and immediately see fault in everything I do, but if I have learned anything about feedback when it comes to education, while being a part of this program, is that I will not be a good teacher, colleague, team member, or collaborator if I do not take feedback as a positive way to fix and improve on areas. How do I expect students to improve if I do not give them feedback? How would I expect to improve if I did not have teacher friends and peers, fellow colleagues, teachers in my education programs, and administration and parents giving me their thoughts and feedback? The ability to recognize this and accept the reality that feedback is a mirrored reflection and is truly helpful in becoming the best possible teacher I can be is something I must thank my teachers and peers over the years for.
3. How your experiences might impact your future teaching experiences. I am aware that my peers wrote about 2,400 words for their entire Phase III and I am now passing 7,000, but if someone tells me to write a comprehensive reflection of my overall experience for a class, I tend to be extremely extensive. I did not realize until this moment while coming to the end of my reflective journey, just how much I truly took away from this one class. I guess as my education program is coming to an end, I have learned so much and the culmination of my experiences that range from online classes, to on-ground classes, to classroom observations, to teaching lessons, and my almost four years of observing, volunteering, and working at Desert Valley Elementary, I just feel ready to put my education to good use. The impact that my education and all the lessons I have learned will definitely reflect onto my future students. I hope that my growing and continuous knowledge and learning will come in handy in more ways then just the box of the classroom. I want to open the eyes of my students like mine have been opened, but keep in mind that they need to learn how to safe, legal, and what is right and wrong. The world is so much larger now that technology has opened the doors up to places like Egypt and China, where children in Bullhead City, Arizona can chat with E-Pals from these countries. Who could have imagined the strides we would make in the years since the first computer was conceived. The experience this class has given me allowed me to write a comprehensive reflection of over 7,000 words. Thank you Mr. Weilke for your wise years of knowledge and experience and sharing all your tidbits that helped make me a slight technology guru.