What exactly does this mean? How do we help our students to develop these skills? What are the skills I need as an educator to be able to mentor my students for their digital future beyond the classroom? In this module, we will take some time to explore the ISTE Standards and interpret what they mean for our own classrooms. We'll also develop an appreciation for the aspirational goals they hold for our students.

As I am sure is the case with you, I can think of a dozen ways we have already been implementing some of these new standards in our school. But, we have a long way to go! Each year, I try to take one specific focus on a standard and to implement practices from that standards to best meet the needs of our students. Otherwise, trying to tackle all of the ISTE Standards can become overwhelming.

This year, the most critical aspect I believe for our school is Standard #2b Digital Citizen: Engage in a positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior. This is because this year we introduced SeeSaw, a digital learning portfolio that enables students to share their work digitally with their parents. For our younger students, this will be the first digital footprint they will be making. And for this very reason, I felt that helping them to be safe and smart online is one focus we had to get right!

Read

Now it is your turn to dive deep into the new ISTE Standards.. You will do this by reviewing the standards:

ISTE 2016 Standards for Students-PDF (For the online version, scroll down for details)

Reflect

After you have read the Standards, reflect on an example of the Standards you might be applying in your own classroom, a colleague's or one you find online. The example should exemplify at least 1 of the 6 Standards. You will post your reflection to our VoiceThread, a free online audio posting tool (link is included below).

Your reflection should include:

• Name of the ISTE Standard you believe your example exemplifies
• Overview of the example (Grade level, subject matter, learning objectives)
• Description of how the example meets the Standard you have selected

To tie in with our section on audio for this module, you will be posting your reflection to our VoiceThread. This will be due: March 19, 2017, 11:59 pm. Your post need not be any longer than 2-minutes. Here are the steps to sign up and then use VoiceThread:

1. Click on this link to access my example comment VoiceThread
2. LISTEN to my comment (which is an example post you can use as a model)
3. Click COMMENT - it will prompt you to SIGN IN, then you can select the microphone icon (NOTE: if you do not already have an account, you'll need to register for a free one)
4. Click ALLOW (so it can access your mic)
5. Once it completes the countdown, begin SPEAKING and click STOP when you're done
6. Select SAVE if you're happy with your recording, or cancel to do over.
7. TITLE your post as follows: Your first name: Title of Lesson, Grade Level, ISTE Standard (you can add Cover Art if you would like, but it is not necessary.)
8. LISTEN to a few of your colleague's recordings to learn some other great ideas!
9. COMMENT on each other's work as you feel compelled to do so! We get our best learning from each other!

When you're done, move onto 3.2 Audio Quality.