After I found these ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) standards online I asked my coworkers if they were familiar with the website and one responded that she had looked at them for one of her masters classes in the past. I was interested in comparing them to the Avenue Standards that I learned about at the ATESL Conference 2023 in Calgary this past October.

Check out this video for a brief overview:

ISTE Standards Overview

I am most interested in the standards for students as well as the standards for educators.

The Standards for Students

While looking over the standards for students, I got to standard 1.5 and met an old friend – Computational Thinker! I say old friend because I feel like I have read so much about computational thinking recently. Before my partner project for 570 I hadn’t heard of computational thinking – or if I had read/heard it, I likely thought that it was just training people to think like a computer, but there is so much more involved than just that.

If you watch the first video there is an example of the children creating an algorithm with dance moves and steps, which is very interesting because it fits with what I was reading – that computational thinking doesn’t just have to be about math and science directly. In this case it gets the students who are interested in dance involved. They worked in groups of 4-5 and coordinated the steps, then input their choreographed steps so a robot could follow. Again, this matches came across with the 570 project, that coding and programming working well with a group that collaborates. So glad to see connections coming together with all my reading. And I’m sure this won’t be the last time I encounter computational thinking.

Standards for Educators

This is where I’m interested in comparing what I notice about the ISTE Standards to the Avenue Standards from my previous post. There are 7 ISTE Standards for educators and there are 8 Avenue Standards – in my notes they began with Standard 0.

ISTE Standards – what stands out for me and connection to Avenue Standards

  1. Learner – educators improve their practice, educator as learner – reminds me of Avenue Standard 2 – update and expand resources and tools regularly
  2. Leader – model for colleagues, strive for equity –  reminds me of Avenue Standard 7 – connect with peers and coworkers to help each other with technology and pedagogy
  3. Citizen – inspire students to responsibly participate in the digital world – reminds me of Avenue Standard 4 – digital citizenship – model tech safely
  4. Collaborator – collaborate and share resources with colleague and students – reminds me of Avenue Standard 7 again – connecting with coworkers to support each other
  5. Designer – create learner-driven activities and environments – reminds me of Avenue Standard 5 – use tech to help learners thrive
  6. Facilitator – facilitate with tech and encourage student ownership of learning, computational thinking!! – reminds me of Avenue Standard 6 – support, monitor and assess the learner
  7. Analyst – support student achievement – reminds me of Avenue Standard 6 again-support, monitor and assess learner progress

Next Steps…

Of course these parallels are just my ideas and could probably be seen in a variety of different ways, but it is interesting to make the connections. I look forward to reading a bit more deeply into these ISTE Standards and also seeing the Avenue Standards that are to come out in the new year. There is probably more to them than what I was able to get into my notebook at the workshop.

Resources

ISTE. (2023). Dream Big. Transform Teaching. Empower Learners.

https://iste.org

Kjällander, S., Mannila, L., Åkerfeldt, A., & Heintz, F. (2021). Elementary Students’ First Approach to Computational Thinking and Programming. Education Sciences, 11(2), 80-. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11020080

21st Century Classroom (Director). (2019, July 26). What Are ISTE Standards? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4_4MCjU4ws