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Kevin J. White
Attention ISTE Portfolio Evaluator →
Attention ISTE Portfolio Evaluator →
Thank you so much for taking the time to review my portfolio as a candidate for the ISTE Certification. This has been such a rewarding journey that began last November at my in-person training in Rochester, NY. Though the certification process is coming to a close, I am grateful and thrilled to have begun and continue utilizing the standards professionally. I have and will continue to share these standards with my colleagues.
This site contains my reflection which can be found below as well as in this Google Doc, my alignment map, and each of the portfolio criteria. Each criterion has an individual page containing the criterion, artifact, description of the artifact, and contextualization of the artifact. Thank you for your consideration
Sincerely,
ISTE Candidate - Kevin J. White
Hello!
Hello!
My name is Kevin White and I am a CTE (Video Production 9-12) & STEAM (K-5) teacher at Plainedge School District in Long Island, NY. Additionally, I am a co-advisor of the PlainedgeTV Club which is responsible for live streaming, recording, and the audio visual needs of district wide concerts, sporting, and special events.
I am very grateful to be in this role and I absolutely love what I do. Though educational technology has always been a passion, education was not my initial career path.
Growing up, my cousin Jennifer was continually tinkering and exploring new tech projects from building computers to setting up home routers and had me by her side. I truly was immersed in it as I progressed through my elementary, middle and high school years. She has since worked for Cisco and Google. After learning from her, I knew that it was going to be a career path I would pursue.
There were other interests that had taken root as those years progressed; one of which was Boy Scouts. I was involved in the program for 15 years and had attained the rank of Eagle Scout. I had developed skills in regards to leadership, communication, and teamwork helped to contribute to some other career goals; helping others. The love of technology and helping others guided my first career path to information technology.
During my senior year of high school, I interned with the Information Technology Department of defense contractor, Northrop Grumman. It was a really rewarding experience that allowed me to develop professional interpersonal skills.
I was able to help out throughout the campus on different projects and get a feel for a career in I.T. This experience was the stepping stone that allowed me to leap into a career of information technology in the educational sector.
The culmination of our internship was this presentation to Grumman management →
Throughout my college years and right through earning my M.S in Technology Systems Management from Stony Brook University, I worked for an EdTech contractor. My role was to support teachers, students, and the district in their technology endeavors. From 1:1 rollouts, to networking, projectors, and more, I was able to truly become immersed in education from a unique perspective. I was able to help others with their technology needs, deployments of new devices, advancing my own skills, and learning about every piece of technology that is utilized in schools.
I found myself becoming more and more interested in the pedagogy I had been learning first hand through helping teachers integrate technology into their lessons. After 7 years of working in the field of information technology I began the process towards a new career path of education. I began teaching full time in fall of 2019 which is when I began my path towards my ISTE certification.
Prompt 1:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
Prompt 1:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
I was initially introduced to the ISTE standards while working on my Masters degree. I had an assignment where I had to review and analyze the standards. Therefore at the start of this certification journey I was aware of the standards but have really begun utilizing them throughout the course of this endeavor. After the 16 hour in-person, I truly felt more understanding of the standards and ready to bring back the standards to my district to begin utilizing my role as well as share with others.
I have begun using the standards to support my role. The curriculum unit plans for my video production classes on file with district administration now has the ISTE standards in addition to NYS standards. My co-teacher and I had revisited each of our units and determined which are already touching upon ISTE standards and where we can incorporate ISTE standards.
One project in particular I modified after learning more about the ISTE standards was a project called Money of Movies. Initially students had to research with partners movies that went over budget to understand the importance of management of resources. The project has since evolved into them receiving a $50 million budget and items they had to fund, from different A-list and B-list actors to marketing types. They had to create the movie plot, trailer, and poster and sell it to their peers. This hit upon a few standards, but most important ISTE Standard 6a, where a culture was fostered for students to take ownership of their learning goals.
Prompt 2:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
Prompt 2:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
When I recall my experiences as a student, I am not able to recall every piece of content from every course. What I am able to recall is specific lessons and specific educators. Lessons that were outside of the box, by teachers who were dedicated to their craft. In each of the items in my portfolio, I hope that those students were able to be both educated and engaged with the help of technology. I hope that they will be able to think back in a decade from now and remember their Spaceship Design Challenge where they were presented with a real-world problem of saving an astronaut. I hope they will be able to appreciate the incorporation of gratitude into a lesson that they can reflect on fondly.
One artifact that I am particularly proud of is the interaction that my video production students had with Joe Gatto from Impractical Jokers. In the CTE courses, I not only stress the importance of content and skill mastery, but also the importance of networking as these upperclassmen are looking to pursue a specific path.
There is an old adage, ‘it is not what you know, it’s who you know.’ Taking it one step further, we highlight to our students that networking is critical because ‘it is not who you know, but who knows you.’ I was so grateful to collaborate with Mr. Gatto and my building administration to provide that relevant experience to my students. In doing so, students were able to get a real-world glimpse at the career they were looking to pursue and learn about the industry.
Prompt 3:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
Prompt 3:
What are you most proud of in your portfolio?
One goal regarding the utilization of digital tools as part of my educational practice going forward is to incorporate the TPACK ideology with the ISTE standards. I initially learned of TPACK at the in-person ISTE training in November 2019. TPACK was revolutionary to me as it was an answer to those who may be hesitant to incorporate a new digital tool into their existing lessons. Teachers who have been mastering their craft for decades have pedagogy and content knowledge and can utilize TPACK to not recreate those lessons, but enhance them with digital tools. I have found TPACK useful as an early adopter because it truly makes sure the digital tool is worthwhile.
Another goal is to integrate a new digital tool into my curriculum each year. There are constantly new tools being released. In order for students as well as myself and colleagues to be on the forefront as an early adopter is to dive right in.
There are countless ways that technology can be utilized to enhance a lesson. Especially this year, there are more and more teachers searching for digital tools in this virtual learning environment. These tools help educators and students alike to not only hone and strengthen their technology skills but specific content-area skills. The digital tools I have learned through ISTE and my fellow certification cohort members are amazing and have begun using some of them already. But it is important that they are incorporated in a way to enhance the lesson.
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