Standards here, there, and Everywhere!

The National Technology Standards for teachers and students are detailed and far reaching. Obviously, the authors of both documents made a good faith effort to address the concerns of how to properly prepare students to successfully function in a digital world. In regards to the student directives, the emphasis on creativity, communication, collaboration and digital citizenship are laudable goals to be sure. However, I was struck by the apparent reliance to use digital media and environments to develop cultural understanding and facilitate engagement with other cultures. It seems to me that before we allow digital technology to be our student’s conduit to interaction with members of other cultures, we as educators should first perform due diligence and assess whether or not our students are up to that challenge. The tendency for individuals within a given culture is to believe that the way their culture operates is correct and anything contrary to that is incorrect is a pervasive one. If these types of ethnocentric views are not dealt with prior to a student’s digital engagement with another culture, their subsequent communication may prove confusing and unproductive.

Likewise, upon reviewing the teacher directives of designing and developing digital-age learning experiences to facilitate and inspire student creativity, I couldn’t help but view this as another case of one size does not fit all. My field experiences have afforded me the opportunity to see up close how districts, schools and classrooms are not all created equal. Each has varying curriculums, levels of funding, and student body challenges. It is somewhat incredulous to require teachers to design learning experiences that incorporate digital tools that their students have no access to due to budgetary constraints.

At a basic level I believe the likelihood that I and others will be able to successfully operate within the guidelines of these standards as practicing educators will greatly depend on resources at our disposal, time to employ these standards, and the capabilities of the students we will be working with.