new tech standards & requirements

Taking this Ed Tech class has taught me that a lot of the Web 2.0 tools that we learned about are great ways to address all of these Educational Technology standards that students need to meet. There are many various programs that students can use and have access to anywhere that there is a computer and is connected to the web since these programs are web-based.
Google docs in many and great ways hits the various standards-for example with communication and collaboration (standard 2), students can share documents with each other and the teacher, work on documents together, and get immediate feedback on projects, papers, etc... sharing over a google document allows multiple people to work on a single project, and it's a great way for the teacher to also be a part of the process. It might be more of a challenge in our elementary school classrooms, but we can also use this as a way to share documents and information with families (if they have the resources at home), and students can have open communication and dialogue with the teacher and their peers. With research and information fluency (standard 3), students are required to apply digital tools to evaluate and use information. Our previous task in Ed Tech was to use data from a spreadsheet and create another document that we could manipulate, change, and try to work on. Our students can do the same on google docs where we as the teacher would give them a spreadsheet to put data in, and see if they understood the information by looking at the charts and/or tables and data they entered. Younger students could simply watch you as the teacher make a graph or chart, and see if they notice any changes or trends in data that was collected. This will lead students to (standard 4) critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. By showing students different methods and tools that they can use to solve problems, or making charts for students to critically think about the data can be extremely helpful for them to understand problem solving, but also helping them find ways that they can present data that they found in the classroom. Teaching and bringing awareness to our students is key when trying to address educational technology. Digital citizenship (standard 5) is a standard that I am sure has created some debate because there can be some who are worried about the nature of the online resources our students are tapping into on the internet. However, as we talked about in class, if you block youtube or other sites, you are taking away digital citizenship rights from students. Instead of hiding certain websites or programs, we need to educate students at a young(er) age, and talk about making good decisions when online. We want our students to explore their creativity and innovation (standard 1) through tools like YouTube, and so if we are restricting our students from those websites and programs, we are limiting their creativity and innovation as well. We as teachers need to work on finding ways to teach our students that children can use these websites and programs too, we just need to know what is appropriate and what is not. Lastly, in order to help our students meet the technology operations and concepts (standard 6) standard, it is important for us teachers to be ed tech savy and aware of tech literacy. The more aware we as teachers are, the better we can help our students, and get them involved in all sorts of programs and applications and tools like how we have been doing in our ed tech class so far!
As we move towards a more technology-run society, we need to do the best we can to help our students be prepared for what they may need to know and what they may need to use. (Education) technology is changing rapidly everyday, but it is never too late to start learning and trying new things-I hope to send that message out to my students in my classrooms!