THE BIG PICTURE:
Creativity and Innovation and Utilizing technology concepts and tools to learn: students need to use their problem solving skills in order to create new and “original” works. Students can creatively discover how to solve complex issues via the use of technology. An example could be a project in a middle or high school (or even college) health class. Perhaps students have to create a solution to our health care system, using Yodio’s to interview, creating blogs or surveys online to collect data, or even making their own video through iPhoto.
Big picture wise, Oregon says within these standards that students can (and should) creatively answer such issues via the use of technology. Also, students need to transfer their current knowledge to learning of new technologies.
Communication and Collaboration: Students communicate with one another through various forms of media. Similar to the standard above, students need to become familiar with many of the diverse technologies our society has! We can use these technologies to learn about other cultures and even develop our own understanding of how others around the world live their life. A great example I hope to use is Skype and blogger.com with my elementary PE students. I have a friend who works as a PE teacher in Ecuador and think it would be awesome to incorporate their lesson and class with my own. How fun would it be to play “Mission Possible” at the same time with 7-9 year old students in Ecuador!
Big picture wise: Oregon encourages students to explore the realm of technology within their own classes. Oregon tries to stress that technology can be used with any content area, and can even help develop students’ cultural awareness.
Research and Information Fluency and Critical Thinking, problem solving and decision making: Students need to analyze and evaluate issues with various and appropriate digital tools. They need to ensure that what they are researching or evaluating is not biased. Also they need to make sure that the data they find are valid! An example may include finding accurate information about the percentage of overweight or sedentary adults in our country. Students can research this percentage via numerous websites, but perhaps may not find accurate information on a random website compared to Healthy People 2010, which provides accurate data regarding people of various ethnicities and their health.
Big Picture: Oregon wants students to find accurate and minimum biased data. Students need to evaluate the information sources they discover and reason why or why not they are valid.
Digital Citizenship: A favorite of mine, this standard says that students need to be safe and responsible online. Students must practice how to be a good digital citizen by not disclosing certain personal information in addition to being respectful to others on forums or websites online. For example, students in a health class may have to participate in a nutrition log forum. Students need to practice being respectful to their peers by commenting positively and constructively regarding their eating habits.
Big Picture: Writing something rude or disrespectful about a person online STAYS online. Forever! Students need to know the damages they may cause if they are not a digital citizen. Students need to protect themselves and their identities online. They need to be responsible both ethically and legally online.
Challenges....
There are lots of challenges that these strategies face. For example, my elementary school has one to two computers in each classroom. There is one computer lab in the small school and usually students visit the lab 1-2 times every two weeks. In addition, most, if not all of the students are from a low socioeconomic background and do not have such technologies in their home. Students lack the resources while teachers lack the time to visit the computer lab. These are huge issues if we want to try to incorporate the standards Oregon has provided the educational realm.
