Teacher Technology Requirements

I know that incorporating technology into my instruction is vitally important for my students. However, the technology requirements don’t mean a lot to me for many reasons. Unfortunately, technology is not anywhere near the top of the list of priorities for our school districts. Technology might be part of our performance based teacher standards, but principals in general are much more concerned with our students’ growth, and don’t care as much how they got there or if technology was involved. Also, there are so many different technology standards out there. There are 21^st Century skills, NETS for Students, NETS for teachers, teacher performance standards, and state technology standards. Plus a cornucopia of other resources designed to help us implement technology such as Marzano’s Instructional strategies, multiple intelligences, and Big 6 research strategies. No teacher in her right mind would want to use all of them.

I feel like I sound very cynical about this but I just try to be realistic. I am a young and relatively new teacher that is constantly working and researching to learn more and become a better teacher with technology. There are not many of us. For teachers who have been teaching many years, they might not even know that there are technology requirements upon them. It is going to be a rough transition for them to change the way they have been doing things for years. School districts need to step up to really help us implement good technology in our classrooms.

            I think that adding a Knowledge of Technology standard to our performance based teacher standards is a good step in the right direction. Very soon, it isn’t going to be optional for teachers to use technology. But right now, I do not think it is doing much good. Technology just isn’t a priority. Getting student scores up is.

            I am not saying that I am the perfect proto-type of implementing technology in the classroom. But the important part is that I work very hard and I try new things constantly. I am one of the most tech savvy teachers in my school. I lead the school technology team. Others come watch me teach and ask me questions about their technology. I have 4 iPads in my room that I use every single day, but not for every lesson. I have a document camera and projector that I do use in every lesson. I make sure that I am not just including technology to say I did, but that the technology is really meaningful and aids in my students understanding of the concepts I am teaching. 

    Upon reflection of the Colorado Performance Based Standards for Teachers in technology, I think that my somewhat cynical point of view is still true to a certain degree. The standards are very vague and broad, allowing for different interpretations. Being broad right now is good, because it allows many different levels of technology implementation. Apply technology to the delivery of standards-based instruction could mean anything from every student having their own device, to using one iPad once a month. But I think this is not driving us in a technology-focused direction. I have also changed my thinking in that I cannot compare everyone to myself, and my level of technology implementation. Every teacher is at a different level and every teacher has different strengths and weaknesses in their teaching. I think technology is a strength of mine, but maybe my writing instruction is a weakness. I could learn from those veteran teachers some skills and ideas about how to better teach my students. I could even throw in some technology to out my own spin on it. As long as teachers are making an effort and trying to use technology we are moving in the right direction.