Educators dedicate time to collaborate with both colleagues and students to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and solve problems. Educators:

• Dedicate planning time to collaborate with colleagues to create authentic learning experiences that leverage technology.

• Collaborate and co-learn with students to discover and use new digital resources and diagnose and troubleshoot technology issues.

• Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.

• Demonstrate cultural competency when communicating with students, parents and colleagues and interact with them as co-collaborators in student learning.

Source: ISTE Teacher Standards

When planning a lesson with technology, teachers should follow the ASSURE Model. The ASSURE Model stands for analyze learners, state standards and objectives, select strategies and resources, utilize resources, require learner participation, and evaluate and revise. All of these components are important when using technology in the classroom for learning purposes. These steps provide guides as to what is expected of students to know, different things to consider when choosing technology, and how to choose technology. The ASSURE Model also allows for teachers to figure out how to tie technology in with a lesson, and how to ensure that they can get the most out of a lesson through feedback and revision. 

I believe that teachers need to be careful when planning lessons with technology because there are many ways students can become distracted and not reach their full potential on a skill or subject. A point that I did not think about that was brought up in the textbook is that it is also important to ensure students are not exposed to dangerous or inappropriate media, even when a colleague gives you a suggestion or recommendation on what media to use. 

In my personal experience, planning a lesson with technology can be hard because it can be difficult to find media that can keep all students attentive and learning. Though I found through a site that FCPS schools use, Lexia Core5, is a great resource to fix the issue of catering to all students. Lexia Core5 creates lessons based on each individual student. The program targets skills students need to work on and new skills for students to learn. The best part is it caters to students from grades PreK-5th based on their skills, what they need to work on, and ties to state standards. It is a great way to not only incorporate technology in and outside of the classroom, but it is also a great way to help students that may be behind to catch up and go beyond what is required of them. It also allows for teachers to track where their students are and the progress they’re making. I personally loved using Lexia to help students during reading. The only issue is that some students may still need one-on-one help while using Lexia, and it is not a program in which students can work together on anything.