ISTE Standards

   ISTE is The International Society for Technology Education. It's one of the several very large, influential professional organizations that promote and influence technology education. It's reach is global. Like other educational professional organizations, it supports research, hosts workshops and conferences and maintains publications.
   The ISTE has also taken a lead in bringing technology professionals together to ask an important question: What are the goals of technology learning for students, teachers and administrators?  Significant time has been spent in creating answers to this question, and the result is a set of ISTE Standards that have been published for students, teachers and administrators.  These standards get at what are often called 21st century skills. This post will examine the student standards, and in a following post, I'll review the teacher standards.
   The student standards are categorized with six separate goal areas.
          1. Creativity and Innovation
          2. Communication and Collaboration
          3. Research and Information Fluency
          4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making 
          5. Digital Citizenship
          6. Technology Operations and Concepts
    A closer examination of first goal, "Creativity and Innovation," shows an emphasis on putting technology within the context of creative thinking. The goal is further explained by saying that "Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes through technology."  This broad idea is further defined through four specific tasks students should master. Students should be able to apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas. Students should create original work. Students should use models and simulations to explore systems. And students should be able to identify trends and forecast possibilities.  In short, one goal of technology learning should be to foster and deepen creativity.
   The second goal, "Communication and Collaboration," partners easily and obviously with emerging technologies.  In an explanatory sentence, the standards emphasize that "Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others." This second goal strongly suggests we find ways to use social media appropriately rather than dismiss it out of hand.  It also suggests that learning need not be geographically confined.
   The third goal gets at the processes by which "students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information."  This standard, among all the six student standards, is most difficult for many veteran educators to accept.  The key roadblock to acceptance, I believe, is the phrase "digital tools."  Research and information literacy has evolved very slowly and carefully over centuries of scholarship. Up until quite recently, the accepted means of acquiring knowledge followed prescribed protocols that were highly articulated. The idea of peer review, for example, is a perfect example of traditionally accepted scholarship.  Digital tools opened the door for a sea change in how knowledge could be acquired, shared and deemed acceptable. Wikipedia provides a perfect example of this new model. The ISTE firmly believes that students must be conversant with digital research tools but at the same time, the ISTE also emphasizes the need for students to be able to analyze and evaluate the information these tools yield.
   "Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making" are listed as the fourth goal.  It seems me the key term here is problem solving because critical thinking with resultant decisions have long been articulated as a student learning goal.  In the bullet points that follow the fourth goal, it is expected that students will work on "authentic problems."  Again, this suggests a departure from past practice. Schools are now explicitly being asked to bring real-world problems into the classroom and teach students how to work on these problems through data collection.  There is also an explicit recommendation that digital tools be used in the solving of problems.  Considering the worlds of work and academia, it's hard not to include digital tools as a key resource in solving problems.
   The fifth goal centers on digital citizenship.  It asks that "Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior." For a couple of reasons, this goal will be difficult to achieve.  I believe the definition of "legal and ethical behavior" is and will remain a moving target.  It easy to forget how new our digital world is.  Particularly in the legal realm, issues connected to digital privacy and copyright, for example, are far from resolved.  Additionally, the oft-noted gulf between the acceptable practices of younger users vs. older users makes the teaching of citizenship an ongoing challenge. None of this is to say that we do not try to educate students about the importance of legal and ethical digital practices; it simply means we should understand we're working towards a goal that will likely never be met to full satisfaction.
   The sixth and final goal, "Technology Operations and Concepts," asks that "Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations." This goal provides a unique challenge to schools because it assumes this learning will occur throughout the school, regardless of grade or discipline. In the explanatory bullet points, it is stated that students should be able to "Understand and use technology systems" and "Troubleshoot systems and applications." There is an implicit assumption here that teachers will be conversant with technology systems and be able to troubleshoot systems. We're not just talking about technology teachers or the technology support staff; we're talking about all faculty.  In other words, teachers and administrators need to be reasonably adept at using technology for this goal to be realized. It will simply not be acceptable for educators to declare that "I don't do technology" or "I'm just not interested in learning anything about computers" if this goal is to be realized.
   The ISTE standards for students define goals for students that put learning at the center.  But they also make a 21st century assumption: that the key toolkit for learning will be digital.  Want to know more? Check out the ISTE web site. On the Home page, click on the "Standards" tab to see the complete set of student standards.