Issues and Ethics in Technology--Week 1

This is my first blog post for the class PHL 5015, Issues and Ethics in Technology. It is week one and I have already learned something new. I learned that there are standards for learning, teaching, and leading in the digital age for technology. These standards are known as the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). These standards were developed by the International Society for Technology in Education. There are two different categories of standards: Standards for Teachers and Standards for Students. 

The NETS for teachers can be found at this link:
http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-t-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

The NETS for students can be found at this link: 
http://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/nets-s-standards.pdf?sfvrsn=2

After looking into the standards, my task was to choose five areas that I could improve on and write a goal for improving them. Part of my blog each week will be to update on the progress of my goals and write about things I have tried in my classroom that relate to my goals. Here are 5 goals, relating to technology, that I want to achieve before the end of the school year: 

1.My goal is to use Skype to engage with researchers, authors, community workers, etc. Reading is a very important skill that we focus on in kindergarten. My goal is to have someone from the community (or someone from around the country) read to my students via Skype each month, and explain the importance of reading in their job. Currently, I have been having guest readers from the community (firefighter, superintendent, dentist, etc.) come to my classroom and read to my students. I would love to use Skype to expand my possibilities of guest readers to my students. I want to show them the importance of reading, and give them an idea of how they may use reading in the future. 

2. My goal is to get more technology in my classroom for students to use in various ways. Currently, I have three student computers, a Smartboard, and a teacher computer. Recently, I wrote a grant to get two iPod Nanos for my classroom for student's to use to listen to books. I transferred all of my books on CD to digital form. My next goal is to write a grant to get an iPad in my classroom for students to use academically. I think my students would be more engaged in the learning if I had more technology in the classroom. I am hoping to write another Donor's Choose grant to help aid me with getting technology in my classroom. If you haven't heard of Donor's Choose before, I highly recommend looking into it. It is a great site for teachers to get supplies for their classrooms. 

Here is an introduction video about Donor's Choose to get you started:

3. Currently I have a classroom website that I use for my students' families to be more involved in their child's classroom. I post photos, links to websites we use, and documents that may be helpful to families. However, I have not yet ventured into the world of blogging with other teachers via the Internet.I have gotten a lot of other ideas from teachers by reading blogs, and I think I could contribute a lot to others. My co-worker recently began blogging to share teaching ideas, and has received a lot of positive feedback. My goal is to create a teacher blog, and write a post at least once a week. I also think I could promote a lot of my products on TeachersPayTeachers using a blog. For reference, my TeachersPayTeachers page can be located here. 4. My goal is to do a research project once a year with another classroom in the country via Skype.  I have had some training on Skype, and seen some videos on "Skype in the Classroom." Due to the press for Common Core Standards, our science instruction has been put a little on the back burner. Therefore, I think doing a research project with another classroom somewhere in the country would be very engaging for my students and would increase their excitement for science. Here is a great video about Skype Education that inspired me to get started in using this technology:

5. My goal is to begin using techonology to help assess my students, both formative and summative assessments. Currently, we assess our kindergarteners on many different standards. My goal is to begin using digital forms of assessments to quickly gather data and gain information about my students. I plan to do this by using the clicker system. I haven't had the opportunity to assess my students using this technology and would like to try it. My fear is that this may be a little advanced for kindergarteners, since most of their assessments are hands-on. I am excited to begin working on these goals in order to meet the technology standards known as NETS. I look forward to blogging and keeping you updated on my progress and also demonstrating the knowledge I am gaining in my class.