ISM is in the middle of accreditation, and the school is committing itself to meeting a number of different external standards, the implementation of which requires careful consideration. Among these are the NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) standards, which outline the 21st century skills our students should be gaining by virtue of being in our classrooms. This has implications for all teachers at ISM.
The acronym NETS implies a strong focus on technology (well, the ‘T’ part does, to be more specific), and the original NETS standards were indeed divided into different technology-related categories, but the latest installment of the standards (released June/July ‘07) addresses six main areas that are less obviously focused on the technology for its own sake:
- Creativity and Innovation
- Communication and Collaboration
- Research and Information Fluency
- Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making
- Digital Citizenship
- Technology Operations and Concepts
Although at first glance the standards may seem slightly vague and general, they emphasize what should be the aim of using technology in schools, namely technology as a means to successfully participate in education and in life beyond. The standards address the various ways technology should be used to support the tasks expected of all members of a 21st century society:
- We all need to be creative and productive
- We’re all expected to communicate and collaborate with others
- We all need to be skilled in sound research methods and make decisions based on our findings
- We all need to plan, manage and organize our work and our time
- We’re all responsible for conducting our online lives according to rules - whether in the form of legal frameworks, or the ever evolving standards of netiquette (which are essentially mores for appropriate behavior in various online settings).
- Finally, expectations for technical literacy are also increasing year by year, and we all need a minimum level of competency in choosing appropriate technology tools, troubleshooting and independently learning to use new applications as needed.
The next challenge will be the implementation stage. Over the coming year, we will be mapping the existing teaching of technology skills taking place in our school (whether explicitly in IT classes or in students’ other classes) and identifying gaps in the coverage of skills mandated by the NETS standards.
Once this is complete, the question becomes: How do we move forward once we know which skills we are not currently giving our students opportunities to develop in our classes?
I would argue that the days where IT teachers have the responsibility for teaching students all they need to know about computers are long gone. Computer skills taught in a vacuum are fairly pointless, and students need opportunities to develop their skills in the context of real work, through all their classes.
We will need to pull together in the same direction to successfully teach them (and ourselves) the 21st century skills they (we) will need.
