New tech standards and requirements

Oregon Educational Technology Standards (OETS)

Click here to view OETS

The 3 students standards that were most significant to me were 1. communication and collaboration 2. critical thinking, problem solving and innovation 3. creativity and innovation.  Below are some ways that I could apply these in the classroom.  

Communication and collaboration

Blogs and social media are rapidly available to all nowadays.  A tool that is used in everyday life can be a great asset in the classroom.  Communication and collaboration between teachers can help with sharing lesson plans and resources.  I like the idea of having a class blog to share what is going on in the classroom.  This can allow students to keep up to date if they are home sick or let parents know what their children is learning.  Using a google doc for group assignments can allow students to collaborate and communicate with others on a common goal.

Critical thinking, problem solving and innovation

The internet is a vast tool to gather information and products.  There is a lot of useful tools that one can use most notably all the tools Google provides.  There are many software programs that are available on the internet yet some come at a high cost.  After looking into ways to incorporate this standard I found a few websites that would be great to gather ideas.  brain teasers and problem solving.  

Creativity and innovation

Technology in itself is very creative, but there are many ways we can apply this in the classroom.  For example I could do a lesson on volcano's and use the internet to teach the students about them.  I could have the students view videos about volcano's and also have them learn about how to actually make one.  The students will be able to visualize, hear, and find out different things about volcano's.  It will interesting to see and hear students reactions from viewing things like this instead of just reading about them in a textbook.

I think a few of biggest hurdles we face in today's classrooms with implementing these standards are resources and funding.  In the news we here about districts cutting back on budgets and eliminating certain programs.  I believe that technology in the classroom is a high priority and we need to find ways to keep it in the classroom.  Some ways we can overcome some of these challenges is to stress the importance of having technology available to our students.  Also finding ways to fund by use of grants, donations, or budget allocation.